mm 


BANCROFT    LIBRARY 


WWRDBOOKCOMPANW 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


or 


"The  Book  of  Mormon" 

and  the  Claims  of  the  Mormons 

Re-examined  from  the  Viewpoint  of 

American  Archaeology  and 

Ethnology 


By 


• 


CHARLES  A':  SHOOK  •»»- 


"Everything  fundamentally 
Biblical  is  scientific ;  and  every 
thing  fundamentally  scientific  is 
Biblical."— -Joseph  Cook. 


CINCINNATI- 

THE    STANDARD    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 
1910 


COPYRIGHT,  1910, 

BY  THE 

STANDARD  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 


Jfit,72~ 
Bancroft  Library 


v 


MORMON  HYMN 

F»ook  of  Mormon,  hid  for  ages 
On  Cumorah's  lonely  hill, 

Written  by  those  ancient  sages 
Whom  Jehovah  taught  his  will; 

Glad  we  hail  it, 
Fullness  of  the  gospel  still  I 

Hail  this  record,  saints  in  Zion, 
Hidden  by  Moroni's  hand, 

Till  the  God  our  souls  rely  on 
Unto  Joseph  gave  command 

To  translate  it, 
Send  it  forth  to  ev'ry  land. 

Hail  the  glorious  light  of  Nephi, 
Hail  the  truths  that  Alma  taught; 

We  will  trust  in  God  like  Lehi, 
Seek  the  Lord  as  Mormon  sought; 

Like  Moroni, 
Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it  not. 

Israel,  gather  round  this  standard ; 

Laman,  see  thy  guiding  star ; 
Judah,  rally  round  thy  banner; 

Come,  ye  Gentiles  from  afar; 
Book  of  Mormon, 

It  is  truth's  triumphal  carl 


PREFACE 


Having  been  taught  in  childhood  to  believe  that 
the  antiquities  of  America  are  the  work  of  those  accom 
plished  races  described  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  I  early 
acquired  an  interest  in  the  study  of  American  archaeology 
and  ethnology  that  has  not  abated,  but  has  increased  as 
the  years  have  gone  by. 

It  was  while  living  at  Jeffersonville,  Indiana,  in  the 
year  1900,  that  I  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  special 
study  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  from  this  viewpoint  for 
the  purpose  of  putting  out  a  small  pamphlet  on  the  subject. 
As  I  entered  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  study,  the  work 
grew  until  it  reached  its  present  proportions,  and  as  dis 
crepancy  after  discrepancy  between  the  claims  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon  and  the  facts  of  science  were  dis 
covered,  I  became  more  and  more  surprised  that  this 
ground  had  not  been  more  thoroughly  worked  by  the 
anti-Mormon  polemic  before,  while  I  became  more  and 
more  convinced  that  in  the  data  acquired  by  archaeolog 
ical  and  ethnological  research  the  opponent  of  this  sys 
tem  has  a  mass  of  evidence  which,  if  rightly  used,  will 
completely  demolish  the  claim  of  the  historical  credibility 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

For  the  last  half  century,  at  least,  the  Mormons 
have  put  out  works  on  American  archaeology,  but  most 
of  these  have  been  mere  collations  of  passages  from 
scientific  writers,  taken  here  and  there  without  a  con 
sideration  of  the  context  and  often  so  arranged  as  to 


8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

give  an  entirely  different  impression  to  the  reader  than 
their  authors  sought  to  convey.  My  plan  has  been  to 
state  fairly  the  Book  of  Mormon,  or  the  Mormon,  position 
on  a  certain  point,  and  then  to  refute  it  by  bringing  to 
bear  against  it  the  latest  and  best  authority  obtainable. 
As  the  reader  will  notice,  the  later  writings  of  Nadail- 
lac,  Brinton,  Powell,  Moorehead,  Dellenbaugh,  Shaler, 
Thomas,  Peet,  Henshaw,  Holmes  and  Russell  have  been 
given  precedence  over  the  earlier  writings  of  Adair, 
Boudinot,  Priest,  Baldwin,  Foster  and  others.  American 
archaeology  is  a  growing  science,  and  many  of  the  old 
opinions  have  had  to  be  given  up  as  research  has  pro 
gressed. 

I  wish  here  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  the 
authors  from  whom  I  quote,  and  to  disclaim  any  in 
tention  of  posing  as  an  authority  on  American  anthro 
pology.  All  that  I  have  done,  for  which  I  can  justly  ask 
credit,  is  to  marshal  the  facts  of  archaeology,  already 
gathered,  against  the  citadel  of  Mormon  error.  How 
well  this  has  been  done  will  be  for  the  reader  to  decide. 

I  also  wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  Mr. 
Charles  Gibson,  Mr.  Jeff.  D.  Ward  and  Mrs.  A.  E.  W. 
Robertson,  of  Indian  Territory,  for  Indian  vocabularies ; 
to  Rev.  J.  S.  Howk,  of  Jeffersonville,  Indiana,  for  lists  of 
words  in  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee ;  to  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet,  of 
Chicago,  Illinois,  for  valuable  suggestions  and  for  in 
formation  touching  certain  points  in  which  his  work  as 
an  archaeologist  has  been  involved ;  and  to  R.  B.  Neal,  of 
Pikeville,  Kentucky,  and  Prof.  R.  C.  Robbins,  of  Men- 
dota,  Illinois,  besides  a  number  of  others  who  have 
rendered  valuable  help  in  various  ways. 

CHARLES  A.  SHOOK. 

BUCHANAN,  Michigan,  August  19,  1908. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE. 

THE  RISE  OF  MORMONISM.  Is  the  Book  of  Mormon  one  of 
Solomon  Spaulding's  romances? — An  outline  of  Book  of 
Mormon  history — The  Book  of  Mormon  and  American 
archaeology 15 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN  IN  AMERICA.  The  antiquity  of  man  in 
America — How  man  reached  America — The  native  tribes 
and  nations  of  America — The  ruins  of  America — The 
traditional  history  of  America — Archaeological  knowl 
edge  in  1830 60 

CHAPTER    III. 

WERE  THE  ANCIENT  AMERICANS  OF  THE  WHITE  RACE?  White 
Indians — Traditions  of  white  and  bearded  men — Red- 
haired  mummies — American  craniology 139 

CHAPTER    IV. 

ARE  THE  AMERICAN.  INDIANS  OF  JEWISH  DESCENT?  History 
of  the  theory — What  the  Book  of  Mormon  teaches — An 
alogies  :  Division  into  tribes,  worship  of  Jehovah,  notions 
of  a  theocracy,  belief  in  the  administration  of  angels, 
languages  and  dialects,  manner  of  reckoning  time, 
prophets  and  priests,  festivals,  fasts  and  religious  rites, 
ablutions  and  anointings,  separation  of  women,  ab 
stinence  from  unclean  things,  marriage,  divorce  and  pun 
ishment  of  adultery,  cities  of  refuge,  purifications  and 
preparatory  ceremonies,  ornaments,  burial  of  the  dead — 
Madagascaran,  Mongolian  and  Malayan  analogies — Facts 
fatal  to  the  theory 173 


io  CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED 

CHAPTER   V. 

WERE  THE  ANCIENT  CENTRAL  AMERICANS  AND  MEXICANS  THE 
JAREDITES  AND  NEPHITES?  What  Mormons  claim— The 
ancient  Central  Americans  and  Mexicans  were  not  white 
— The  first  people  of  Central  America  were  savages — 
The  first  civilized  peoples  came  from  the  north — The 
contact  of  the  ancient  peoples — The  first  civilized  people 
not  exterminated — Extent  of  the  ancient  empires — Toltec 
history 216 

CHAPTER    VI. 

WERE  THE  MOUND  BUILDERS  THE  JAREDITES  AND  NEPHITES? 
History  of  the  discussion  on  the  nationality  of  the 
Mound  Builders — What  Mormons  believe — The  Mound 
Builders  one  race — The  Mound  Builders  not  one  nation, 
but  many  tribes — The  direction  of  Mound-builder  migra 
tion — The  antiquity  of  the  Mound  Builders — The  culture 
of  the  Mound  Builders — The  nationality  of  the  Mound 
Builders 256 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  CIVILIZATION  OF  ANCIENT  AMERICA.  The  origin  of 
ancient  American  civilization — Did  it  come  from  trie 
tower  of  Babel? — Ancient  American  civilization  not  de 
rived  from  the  Jews — Egyptian  analogies  examined — 
The  antiquity  of  ancient  American  civilization — Certain 
features  of  American  civilization  which  oppose  the  Book 
of  Mormon — The  ancient  Americans  did  not  manu 
facture  iron  and  steel  tools — The  ancient  Americans  did 
not  have  the  horse — The  utter  absence  of  wheat  and 
other  Oriental  cereals 321 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  AMERICANS.    The  native  idea  of  Go 
— The  Mayan  trinity — Was  Quetzalcoatl  Jesus  Christ? 
The  Indian  devil — The  American  cross — The  American 
priesthoods — Rites   and   ceremonies — Cosmogony — Myth 
ology — Eschatology — The    ancient    religions    as    revealed 
in  the  ruins  and  remains — The  absence  of  Jewish  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  n 

Christian  antiquities — The  ancient  temples  like  the 
modern — The  presence  of  idols  among  the  antiquities — 
The  etchings  and  paintings — Altars — Effigy  mounds 384 

CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  NATIVE  LANGUAGES  OF  AMERICA.  Their  supposed  re 
semblance  to  the  Hebrew  examined — Their  similarity  to 
the  Chinese  and  other  tongues — Not  wrecks,  but  develop 
ments — The  structure  of  the  American  languages — The 
diversity  of  the  American  languages — Supposed  Book  of 
Mormon  words  in  American  nomenclature 462 

CHAPTER   X. 

THE  HIEROGLYPHICS  OF  AMERICA.  No  uniform  system  of 
ancient  writing — The  character  of  the  Maya  hiero 
glyphics — The  origin  of  the  Maya  writing — The  antiquity 
of  the  Maya  writing — The  "Caractors" — The  purported 
and  genuine  statements  of  Anthon — Are  the  "Caractors" 
Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic? — Are  the 
"Caractors"  American? — The  "Caractors"  deformed 
English — Archaeological  frauds — The  Grave  Creek  tablet 
—The  Kinderhook  plates— The  Newark  tablet— The 
Davenport  tablet — The  Mendon  plates — Conclusion 502 

APPENDIX. 
THE  BOGUS  RELICS  FROM  MICHIGAN 567 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  13 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"Hill    Cumorah" Frontispiece 

Map  of  Jaredite  Lands 48 

Map  of  Nephite  Lands 53 

Map  of  Linguistic  Stocks  of  North  America 79 

Map  of  Linguistic  Stocks  of  South  America 83 

Cavate    Ruins 93 

Cliff  Dwellings 97 

Map  of  Nations  and  Ruins  of  Central  America  and  Mexico  101 

Casa    Colorado 105 

Monitor    Pipes 312 

Shell    Gorget 313 

Ground  Plans  Maya  Temples 339 

Quetzalcoatl   Crucified,   No.    i 407 

Quetzalcoatl   Crucified,   No.  2 408 

Mexican    Pictographs 505 

Indian    Pictographs 510 

Cut  of  "Caractors" 522 

Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic  Characters 528 

Mayan  Characters  from  Palenque 536 

Mayan  Characters  from  Copan 537 

Mayan  Characters  from  Quirigua 538 

Mormon  "Caractors"  and  English  Characters 539 

The  Grave   Creek  Tablet 541 

The  Kinderhook  Plates 547 

The  Davenport  Tablet 558 

Characters  on  Bogus  Antiquities  from  Michigan 570 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  15 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER    I. 

The  Rise  of  Mormonism — Is  the  Book  of  Mormon  One  of 
Spaulding's  Romances? — Historical  Outline  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon — The  Book  of  Mormon  and  American  Archaeology. 

Joseph  Smith,  the  founder  of  Mormonism,  was  born 
in  Sharon,  Windsor  County,  Vermont,  December  23, 
1805.  His  father's  name  was  Joseph,  and  his  mother's 
maiden  name  was  Lucy  Mack.  Besides  Joseph,  there 
were  eight  other  children,  as  follows:  Alvin  (who  died 
in  1824),  Hyrum,  Samuel,  William,  Don  Carlos,  Sophro- 
nia,  Catherine  and  Lucy.  When  Joseph  was  in  his  tenth 
year  the  family  removed  to  Ontario  (now  Wayne) 
County,  New  York,  and  settled  at  Palmyra,  four  years 
afterwards  removing  to  Manchester,  in  the  same  county, 
where  he  spent  his  young  manhood  and  where  the  history 
of  Mormonism  properly  begins. 

In  both  Palmyra  and  Manchester  the  Smiths  bore 
an  unsavory  reputation,  and  Joseph  was  reared  in  igno 
rance  and  poverty,  and  is  reputed  to  have  been  indolent, 
loose  in  his  habits  and  of  questionable  veracity.  Danford 
Booth,  a  neighbor,  says  of  him:  "I  knew  Joe  Smith 
personally  to  some  extent,  saw  him  frequently,  knew 
well  his  reputation ;  he  was  a  lazy,  drinking  fellow,  and 
Icose  in  his  habits  in  every  way."  Orrin  Reed,  another 
neighbor,  testifies:  "Smith's  reputation  was  bad."  And 
William  Bryant  says  of  the  family:  "I  knew  the  Smiths, 


16  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

but  did  not  associate  with  them,  for  they  were  too  low 
to  associate  with.  There  was  no  truth  in  them.  Their 
aim  was  to  get  in  where  they  could  get  property.  They 
broke  up  homes  in  that  way.  Smith  had  no  regular  busi 
ness.  He  had  frequent  revelations."  ' 

Mormon  writers  try  to  make  it  appear  that  Smith  has 
been  grossly  slandered,  but  it  would  seem  from  his  own 
confessions  that  the  charges  of  his  neighbors  were  not 
far  from  the  truth,  for  he  admits  that  after  receiving  hiL 
first  revelation  even  he  drifted  away,  "fell  into  many 
foolish  errors,  and  displayed  the  weakness  of  youth  and 
the  corruption  of  human  nature/'  which  led  him  "into 
divers  temptations,  to  the  gratification  of  many  appetites 
offensive  in  the  sight  of  God."  2  It  is  only  natural  that 
a  man  should  touch  his  own  failings  lightly,  and  it  seems 
most  likely  that  his  "foolish  errors"  were  his  dissolute 
habits  mentioned  in  the  testimonies  of  his  neighbors. 

Soon  after  the  Smiths  removed  to  Manchester  a 
revival  commenced  in  that  place,  which,  beginning  with 
the  Methodists,  soon  became  general  among  the  other 
sects  of  the  community — the  Baptists  and  the  Presby 
terians.  As  a  result  of  strong  sectarian  prejudices,  we 
are  told,  there  was  no  little  contention  among  the  people, 
which  considerably  disturbed  the  mind  of  young  Joseph, 
he  being  partial  to  the  Methodists,  though  his  mother,  his 
brothers,  Hyrum  and  Samuel,  and  his  sister,  Sophronia, 
had  been  proselyted  to  the  Presbyterians.  While  in  this 
state  of  mind,  he  tells  us,  he  one  day  read  the  words  of 
James:  "If  any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God, 
that  giveth  to  all  men  liberally  and  upbraideth  not;  and 
it  shall  be  given  him."  Taking  the  apostle's  counsel,  he 
sought  the  seclusion  of  the  forest  and  laid  his  desires 


1  "Braden   and   Kelley   Debate,"   p.    119. 
8  "Mr.   Durant,  of  Salt  Lake  City,"  p.  71. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  17 

before  the  Lord  in  prayer.  Scarcely  had  he  begun  to 
pray,  he  says,  than  he  was  seized  by  some  unseen  power 
which  so  bound  his  tongue  that  he  could  not  speak. 
Thick  darkness  gathered  around  him,  and  it  seemed  for 
a  time  that  he  was  doomed  to  destruction.  Terror- 
stricken,  he  exerted  all  his  powers  to  call  upon  the  Lord, 
when,  to  his  great  joy,  a  pillar  of  light,  brighter  than  the 
sun,  descended  upon  him,  dispelling  the  darkness,  and  his 
power  of  articulation  was  restored.  At  this  juncture  two 
personages  stood  before  him  with  a  brightness  and  glory 
beyond  description.  One  of  them,  pointing  to  the  other, 
said :  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,  hear  him." 

"My  object  in  going  to  inquire  of  the  Lord,"  says 
Joseph,  "was  to  know  which  of  all  the  sects  was  right, 
that  I  might  know  which  to  join.  No  sooner,  therefore, 
did  I  get  possession  of  myself,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
speak,  than  I  asked  the  personages  who  stood  above  me 
in  the  light,  which  of  all  the  sects  was  right  (for  at  this 
time  it  had  never  entered  into  my  heart  that  all  were 
wrong),  and  which  I  should  join.  I  was  answered  that 
I  must  join  none  of  them,  for  they  were  all  wrong,  and 
the  personage  who  addressed  me  said  that  all  their  creeds 
were  an  abomination  in  his  sight;  that  those  professors 
were  all  corrupt." 

Soon  after  seeing  this  vision  Joseph  related  his  ex 
perience  to  the  Methodist  preacher,  who,  he  says,  treated 
his  story  with  contempt,  saying  that  the  whole  thing  was 
of  the  devil,  and  told  him  that  there  are  no  such  things 
nowadays,  they  having  ceased  with  the  apostles. 

On  the  night  of  the  2ist  of  September,  1823,  accord 
ing  to  his  story,  he  was  favored  with  another  vision. 
After  retiring  for  the  night,  he  betook  himself  to  prayer 
and  supplication,  when  his  room  was  illuminated  with  a 
heavenly  light  and  a  personage  appeared  before  him  who 


i8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

gave  his  name  as  Moroni.  He  said  that  he  Lad  come 
from  the  presence  of  God,  and  told  Joseph  that  there  was 
a  great  work  for  him  to  do,  and  that  his  name  should 
go  out  among  the  people  for  both  good  and  evil.  He 
informed  him  that  there  was  a  set  of  plates  deposited  in 
a  hill  not  far  from  his  home,  which  contained  a  history 
of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  America,  and  with  them  the 
Urim  and  Thummim  by  which  they  were  to  be  translated. 
He  also  quoted  a  number  of  passages  from  the  Bible  and 
revealed  the  depository  of  the  plates  "so  clearly  and  dis 
tinctly,"  says  Joseph,  "that  I  knew  the  place  again  when 
I  visited  it." 

The  next  day,  Smith  tells  us,  he  repaired  to  the  spot, 
which  was  on  a  hill  near  Manchester,  where  he  found  a 
rock  of  considerable  size,  thick  in  the  middle,  but  thin  at 
the  edges,  which  were  covered  with  turf.  Removing  the 
earth  and  procuring  a  lever,  he,  with  some  difficulty, 
raised  the  rock,  and  found  underneath,  so  his  story  goes, 
a  stone  box  formed  of  four  flat  stones  placed  upright 
upon  another  which  served  as  a  bottom.  The  edges  of 
these  stones,  we  are  told,  were  firmly  held  together  with 
a  certain  kind  of  cement,  and  the  whole  formed  a  box  of 
convenient  size  and  so  tight  as  to  exclude  moisture.  This 
box  is  said  to  have  contained,  besides  the  plates  and  the 
Urim  and  Thummim,  which  were  two  transparent  stones 
set  in  bows,  a  breastplate  and  the  sword  of  Laban,  an 
ancient  resident  of  Jerusalem.  Joseph  made  an  attempt 
to  remove  the  plates,  but  was  forbidden  by  the  angel, 
who  told  him  that  four  years  must  needs  elapse  before 
they  were  to  be  delivered  into  his  hands. 

In  October,  1825,  Smith  hired  out  to  Mr.  Josiah 
Stoal,  a  resident  of  Chenango  County,  New  York,  who 
sent  him  to  Harmony,  Susquehanna  County.  Pennsyl 
vania,  to  dig  for  a  lost  silver  mine.  While  engaged  in 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  19 

this  labor  he  boarded  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Isaac  Hale, 
where  he  met  his  future  wife,  Mr.  Hale's  daughter, 
Emma.  The  Hales  were  not  at  all  favorable  to  Joseph's 
suit,  on  account  of  his  dissolute  habits — Joseph  says  it 
was  because  he  persisted  in  his  claim  to  have  had  a 
vision — and  he  and  Emma  eloped  and  were  married  at  the 
house  of  Squire  Tarbill,  in  South  Bambridge,  Chenango 
County,  New  York,  January  18,  1827. 

On  the  22d  of  September  following,  Joseph  went,  he 
says,  for  the  last  time  to  "Hill  Cumorah,"  where  the 
angel  delivered  the  plates  into  his  hands,  telling  him  that 
he  would  be  held  responsible  for  their  safekeeping,  and 
that  if  he  let  them  go  through  carelessness  or  neglect 
he  would  be  cut  off. 

Apostle  Parley  P.  Pratt  gives  the  following  descrip 
tion  of  the  plates  and  the  Urim  and  Thummim:  ''These 
records  were  engraved  on  plates,  which  had  the  appear 
ance  of  gold.  Each  plate  was  not  far  from  seven  by 
eight  inches  in  width  and  length,  being  not  quite  as  thick 
as  common  tin.  They  were  filled  on  both  sides  with 
engravings,  in  Reformed  Egyptian  characters,  and  bound 
together  in  a  volume  as  the  leaves  of  a  book,  and  fas 
tened  at  the  edge  with  three  rings  running  through  the 
whole.  This  volume  was  something  near  six  inches  in 
thickness,  a  part  of  which  was  sealed.  The  characters 
or  letters  upon  the  unsealed  part  were  small  and  beau 
tifully  engraved.  The  whole  book  exhibited  many  marks 
of  antiquity  in  its  construction,  as  well  as  much  skill  in 
the  art  of  engraving.  With  the  records  was  found  a 
curious  instrument,  called  by  the  ancients  the  Urim  and 
Thummim,  which  consisted  of  two  transparent  stones, 
clear  as  crystal,  set  in  two  rims  of  a  bow.  This  was  in 
use  in  ancient  times  by  persons  called  seers.  It  was  an 
instrument  by  the  use  of  which  they  received  revelation 


20  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

of  things  distant,  or  of  things  past  or  future." — A  Voice 
of  Warning,  p.  73. 

In  December,  1827,  Smith  removed  from  Manchester, 
where  he  had  been  living  since  his  elopement,  to  the 
home  of  his  father-in-law  in  Harmony,  Pennsylvania,  to 
escape,  he  says,  from  persecution.  It  is  very  possible 
that  the  citizens  of  Manchester  could  have  given  a  better 
reason  for  his  flight.  On  the  way,  he  declares  he  was 
detained  at  two  different  times  by  an  officer  with  a 
search-warrant  who  was  looking  for  the  plates. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1828,  Martin  Harris,  a 
credulous  farmer,  who  had  been  a  friend  to  Smith  and 
a  believer  in  his  story  in  Palmyra,  came  to  Harmony, 
obtained  a  transcript  of  the  characters  which  were  on  the 
plates,  and  took  them  to  New  York  and  presented  them 
to  Dr.  Mitchell  and  Professor  Anthon,  two  learned  lin 
guists  of  that  city,  for  their  examination.  Harris  gives 
the  following  account  of  what  happened  at  New  York: 

"I  went  to  the  city  of  New  York  and  presented  the 
characters  which  had  been  translated,  with  the  transla 
tion  thereof,  to  Professor  Anthon,  a  gentleman  celebrated 
for  his  literary  attainments.  Professor  Anthon  stated 
that  the  translation  was  correct,  more  so  than  any  he  had 
before  seen  translated  from  the  Egyptian.  I  then  showed 
him  those  which  were  not  yet  translated,  and  he  said  that 
they  were  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyriac  and  Arabic,  and 
he  said  that  they  were  the  true  characters.  He  gave  me 
a  certificate  certifying  to  the  people  of  Palmyra  that  they 
were  true  characters,  and  that  the  translation  of  such  of 
them  as  had  been  translated  was  also  correct.  I  took  the 
certificate  and  put  it  into  my  pocket,  and  was  just  leaving 
the  house,  when  Mr.  Anthon  called  me  back,  and  asked 
me  how  the  young  man  found  out  that  there  were  gold 
plates  in  the  place  where  he  found  them.  I  answered 


CVMORAH  REVISITED  21 

that  an  angel  of  God  had  revealed  it  unto  him.  He  then 
said  unto  me,  'Let  me  see  that  certificate.'  I  accordingly 
took  it  out  of  my  pocket  and  gave  it  to  him,  when  he 
took  it  and  tore  it  to  pieces,  saying  that  there  was  no 
such  thing  now  as  the  ministering  of  angels,  and  that  if 
I  would  bring  the  plates  to  him  he  would  translate  them. 
I  informed  him  that  part  of  the  plates  were  sealed,  and 
that  I  was  forbidden  to  bring  them.  He  replied,  'I  can 
not  read  a  sealed  book.'  I  left  him  and  went  to  Dr. 
Mitchell,  who  sanctioned  what  Professor  Anthon  had 
said  respecting  both  the  characters  and  the  transla 
tion." 

Upon  returning  from  New  York,  Harris  became 
Smith's  scribe,  and,  after  copying  116  pages,  the  Book 
of  Lehi,  he  secured  Smith's  permission  to  carry  the 
manuscript  home  with  him  to  read  to  his  wife,  who  did 
not  prove  as  credulous  as  Martin.  One  evening,  after 
reading  the  story  to  Mrs.  Harris  and  some  "pious 
friends,"  he  locked  the  manuscript  in  a  bureau  drawer 
and  also  locked  the  door  of  the  room.  But,  notwith 
standing  these  precautions,  on  the  morrow  it  was  gone. 
It  seems  that  Mrs.  Harris  did  not  approve  of  her  hus 
band's  course,  and,  obtaining  the  manuscript,  consigned 
it  to  the  flames.  Great  was  Smith's  consternation  when 
he  learned  of  the  misfortune.  He,  supposing  that  the 
manuscript  had  been  preserved,  was  fearful  lest,  if  he 
should  write  another  Book  of  Lehi.  the  first  would  be 
produced,  compared  with  the  second,  and  the  fraud  be 
detected.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this  part  of  the  book 
were  not  reproduced,  it  would  be  a  tacit  confession  of 
the  imposture.  At  this  critical  time  Joseph  received 
another  revelation  in  which  he  was  told  that  the  words 
of  the  manuscript  had  been  altered  so  that  they  would 
read  contrary  to  what  had  been  written,  for  which  cause 


22  CVMORAH  REVISITED 

he  was  commanded  not  to  translate  that  portion  of  the 
plates  again  so  that  his  enemies  might  "not  accomplish 
their  evil  designs  in  lying  against  those  words."  For  his 
carelessness  Harris  lost  his  place  as  Smith's  scribe,  and 
was  severely  reprimanded  by  the  Lord  in  a  revelation  to 
Joseph. 

For  several  months  the  work  of  translating  was  inter 
rupted,  until  the  i/th  of  April,  1829,  when  Oliver  Cow- 
dery,  who  had  been  a  schoolteacher  in  the  Smith  district 
in  New  York,  and  who  had  heard  of  Joseph's  claims 
from  his  father,  and  who  had  arrived  two  days  before, 
began  his  services  as  Smith's  scribe. 

The  manner  of  translating  was  unique.  Smith,  so 
David  Whitmer  says,  sat  at  one  end  of  a  table  and 
Cowdery  at  the  other.  The  plates  were  not  directly  be 
fore  Joseph,  but,  with  the  Urim  and  Thummim  in  his 
hat  and  his  hat  over  his  face,  he  read  off  the  stones  the 
translation  of  the  original  characters  to  Cowdery,  who 
wrote  it  down  as  it  fell  from  his  lips.  And,  we  are 
informed,  neither  the  characters  nor  the  translation,  both 
of  which  appeared  on  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  dis 
appeared  until  after  Cowdery  had  written  the  translation 
down  correctly.1 

On  May  15,  1829,  John  the  Baptist  appeared  and 
ordained  Smith  and  Cowdery,  so  they  claim,  to  the 
Aaronic  priesthood;  following  which  Joseph  baptized 
Oliver,  then  Oliver  Joseph,  upon  which  they  reordained 
each  other  to  the  same  office  to  which  they  had  been  set 
apart  by  the  spirit  hands  of  the  Baptist. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  was  finally  translated,  copy 
righted  June  n,  1829,  and  issued  in  book  form  early  in 
1830.  With  it  appeared  the  testimony  of  three  witnesses, 


1  "Prophet  of  Palmyra,"  p.  26. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  23 

Oliver  Cowdery,  David  Whitmer  and  Martin  Harris; 
and  also  the  testimony  of  eight  witnesses,  Christian 
Whitmer,  Jacob  Whitmer,  Peter  Whitmer,  Jr.,  John 
Whitmer,  Hiram  Page,  Joseph  Smith,  Sr.,  Hyrum  Smith 
and  Samuel  H.  Smith. 

THE    TESTIMONY   OF    THREE    WITNESSES. 

Be  it  known  unto  all  nations,  kindreds,  tongues,  and 
people,  unto  whom  this  work  shall  come,  that  we,  through 
the  grace  of  God  the  Father,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
have  seen  the  plates  which  contain  this  record,  which  is  a 
record  of  the  people  of  Nephi,  and  also  of  the  Lamanites, 
their  brethren,  and  also  of  the  people  of  Jared,  who  came 
from  the  tower  of  which  hath  been  spoken ;  and  we  also 
know  that  they  have  been  translated  by  the  gift  and 
power  of  God,  for  his  voice  hath  declared  it  unto  us; 
wherefore  we  know  of  a  surety  that  the  work  is  true. 
And  we  also  testify  that  we  have  seen  the  engravings 
which  are  upon  the  plates ;  and  they  have  been  shown 
unto  us  by  the  power  of  God,  and  not  of  man.  And  we 
declare  with  words  of  soberness,  that  an  angel  of  God 
came  down  from  heaven,  and  he  brought  and  laid  before 
our  eyes,  that  we  beheld  and  saw  the  plates,  and  the 
engravings  thereon ;  and  we  know  that  it  is  by  the  grace 
of  God  the  Father,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  we 
beheld  and  bare  record  that  these  things  are  true ;  and  it 
is  marvelous  in  our  eyes ;  nevertheless,  the  voice  of  the 
Lord  commanded  us  that  we  should  bear  record  of  it; 
wherefore,  to  be  obedient  unto  the  commandments  of 
God,  we  bear  testimony  of  these  things.  And  we  know 
that  if  we  are  faithful  in  Christ,  we  shall  rid  our  gar 
ments  of  the  blood  of  all  men,  and  be  found  spotless 
before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ,  and  shall  dwell  with 
him  eternally  in  the  heavens.  And  the  honor  be  to  the 


24  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  is 
one  God.    Amen.  OLIVER  COWDERY, 

DAVID  WHITMER, 
MARTIN  HARRIS. 

THE  TESTIMONY  OF  EIGHT  WITNESSES. 

Be  it  known  unto  all  nations,  kindreds,  tongues,  and 
people,  unto  whom  this  work  shall  come,  that  Joseph 
Smith,  Jr.,  the  translator  of  this  work,  has  shown  unto 
us  the  plates  of  which  hath  been  spoken,  which  have  the 
appearance  of  gold;  and  as  many  of  the  leaves  as  said 
Smith  has  translated,  we  did  handle  with  our  hands ;  and 
we  also  saw  the  engravings  thereon,  all  of  which  has  the 
appearance  of  ancient  work,  and  of  curious  workman 
ship.  And  this  we  bear  record  with  words  of  soberness, 
that  the  said  Smith  has  shown  unto  us,  for  we  have  seen 
and  hefted,  and  know  of  a  surety,  that  the  said  Smith 
has  got  the  plates  of  which  we  have  spoken.  And  we 
give  our  names  unto  the  world  to  witness  unto  the  world 
that  which  we  have  seen ;  and  we  lie  not,  God  bearing 
witness  of  it. 

CHRISTIAN    WHITMER,  HIRAM  PAGE, 

JACOB  WHITMER,  JOSEPH  SMITH,  Sr., 

PETER  WHITMER,  Jr.,  HYRUM  SMITH, 

JOHN  WHITMER,  SAMUEL  H.  SMITH. 

On  April  6,  1830,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of 
Latter-day  Saints  was  organized  at  Fayette,  Seneca 
County,  New  York,  with  six  members:  Joseph  Smith, 
Aliver  Cowdery,  Samuel  Smith,  Hyrum  Smith,  David 
Whitmer  and  Peter  Whitmer.  Of  these,  Joseph  Smith 
and  Oliver  Cowdery  were  called  and  ordained  elders. 
This,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  the  rise  of  Mormonism, 
chiefly  from  the  Mormon  viewpoint. 


CVMORAH   REVISITED  25 

IS  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON  ONE  OF  SPAULDING's  ROMANCES'* 

Gentiles,  with  few  exceptions,1  believe  that  the  Book 
of  Mormon  is  one  of  Solomon  Spaulding's  romances, 
which  somehow  fell  into  Smith's  hands  and  was  altered 
to  suit  his  purpose.  No  matter  what  others  may  think, 
I  agree  with  those  who  are  of  this  opinion,  although  I 
have  not  always  done  so.2 

Solomon  Spaulding  was  born  at  Ash  ford,  Connecti 
cut,  in  1761 ;  graduated  from  Dartmouth  College  in  1785, 
and  completed  his  course  in  theology  in  1787.  After  this 
he  preached  for  a  time,  but  finally  became  an  infidel,  quit 
preaching  and  engaged  in  merchandizing  in  Cherry  Val 
ley,  New  York,  where  he  failed  financially  in  1807.  In 
1809,  with  a  business  partner,  Henry  Lake,  he  built  a 
forge  at  Conneaut,  Ohio,  where  he  again  failed  in  1812. 
The  same  year  he  removed  to  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania, 
in  which  city  he  lived  for  two  years,  removing  then  to 
the  town  of  Amity,  in  the  same  State,  where  he  died 
in  1816. 

It  was  while  living  at  Conneaut  that  he  became  inter 
ested  in  the  aboriginal  works  of  the  country,  and  began 
his  career  as  a  writer  of  romances  based  upon  them. 

His  first  story  proves  to  be  a  fictitious  history  of  a 
company  of  Romans  who,  in  a  voyage  to  Britain  in  the 
time  of  Constantine,  were  driven  from  their  course  by 
contrary  winds  and  were  carried  to  our  shores.  They 

1  D.  H.  Bays,  for  years  a  prominent  minister  in  the  Josephite  Church, 
says,  in  his  "Doctrines  and  Dogmas  of  Mormonism,"  p.  25:  "The  entire 
theory  connecting  Sidney  Rigdon  and  the  Spaulding  romance  with  Joseph 
Smith  in  originating  the  Book  of  Mormon  must  be  abandoned."  He 
connects  Oliver  Cowdery  with  Joseph  in  the  fraud. 

2 1  refer  the  reader  to  the  excellent  little  work,  "The  Origin  of  the 
'Book  of  Mormon,'  Re-examined  in  Its  Relation  to  Spaulding's  'Manu 
script  Found',"  by  A.  T.  Schroeder,  for  sale  at  the  Utah  Gospel  Mission, 
739  Republic  St.,  Cleveland,  O.,  for  a  thorough  discussion  of  this  question 
from  the  anti-Mormon  viewpoint. 


26  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

found  their  way  inland,  and  one  of  them  wrote  a  history 
of  two  Indian  tribes,  the  Sciotans  and  Kentucks,  who 
were  said  to  have  lived  on  the  Ohio  River.  Spaulding 
pretended  to  have  found  this  history,  written  in  the  Latin 
language  on  twenty-eight  rolls  of  parchment,  in  a  stone 
box  in  a  cave  on  Conneaut  Creek.  It  is  evident  that  this 
story  was  never  finished,  for  it  ends  abruptly.  Spaulding 
gave  as  his  reason  for  throwing  it  aside  that  he  wished 
to  go  further  back  in  his  dates  and  write  in  the  old 
Scriptural  style,  that  his  story  might  appear  more  ancient. 
In  1834  this  manuscript  was  loaned  by  Spaulding's  widow 
to  one  Dr.  D.  P.  Hurlburt,  who  was  then  gathering 
evidence  against  the  Mormons,  and  was  turned  over  by 
him  to  a  Mr.  E.  D.  Howe,  editor  of  the  Painesville 
(O.)  Telegraph,  who  was  writing  a  book,  "Mormon- 
ism  Unveiled."  Howe  subsequently  sold  out  to  one  L. 
L.  Rice,  who  started  an  antislavery  newspaper,  and 
among  other  things  transferred  to  him  this  manuscript 
of  Spaulding's.  The  Spaulding  family,  losing  track  of 
the  manuscript,  charged  Hurlburt  with  having  sold  it  to 
the  Mormons,  but  this  was  subsequently  proved  untrue, 
for  Mr.  Rice,  who  in  the  meantime  had  removed  to 
Honolulu,  Sandwich  Islands,  discovered  it  among  old 
papers  in  his  possession  in  1884,  and  afterwards  depos 
ited  it  in  the  library  of  Oberlin  College,  where  it  still 
remains.  Both  of  the  Mormon  churches  have  published 
copies  of  this  manuscript,  and  insist  that  it  forever  settles 
the  question  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  originating  in  the 
writings  of  Solomon  Spaulding.1 


1  Mormon  writers  and  speakers  try  to  make  it  appear  that  this  is  the 
only  manuscript  that  Spaulding  ever  wrote.  The  Deseret  Neu's  for  July  19, 
1900,  says:  "The  discovery  of  the  manuscript  written  by  Mr.  Spaulding, 
and  its  deposit  in  the  library  at  Oberlin  College,  O.,  .  .  .  has  so  com 
pletely  demolished  the  theory  once  relied  upon  by  superficial  minds  that 
the  'Book  of  Mormon'  was  concocted  from  that  manuscript,  that  it  has 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  27 

But  that  Spaulding-  wrote  at  least  one  other  romance, 
the  historical  outline  of  which  was  identical,  or  nearly  so, 
with  the  historical  outline  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  is 
proved  by  the  testimonies  of  a  number  of  his  relatives 
and  acquaintances,  to  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
reading  his  stories.  This  manuscript  was  placed  in  the 
printing  establishment  of  one  Robert  Patterson,  of  Pitts- 
burg,  for  publication,  from  which  it  mysteriously  dis 
appeared,  and  everything  points  to  its  having  been  stolen 
by  Sidney  Rigdon,  who  afterwards  figured  conspicuously 
as  Smith's  first  counselor,  and  who  at  that  time  was  an 
intimate  acquaintance  of  one  of  Patterson's  employes, 
J.  Harrison  Lambdin. 

Patterson  was  in  the  book  business  in  1812  in  the 
firm  of  Patterson  &  Hopkins.  In  January,  1818,  the 
partnership  of  Patterson  &  Lambdin  was  formed,  suc 
ceeding  the  firm  of  R.  &  J.  Patterson.  The  firm  of 
Patterson  &  Lambdin  continued  until  1823.  In  1812 
Spaulding  borrowed  money  and  removed  to  Pittsburg 
for  the  purpose  of  having  his  story  published,  thus 
making  it  possible  for  him  to  pay  his  debts.  His  widow 
declares  that  the  manuscript  was  returned  to  him  with 
the  advice  to  "polish  it  up,  finish  it,  and  you  will  make 
money  out  of  it."  The  Spauldings  then  removed  to 

been  entirely  abandoned  by  all  opponents  of  Mormonism  except  the 
densely  ignorant  or  unscrupulously  dishonest."  But  no  anti-Mormon 
writer  has  ever  claimed,  but  all  have  expressly  denied,  that  the  "Book  of 
Mormon"  originated  in  Spaulding's  Roman  story.  As  early  as  1834  Howe 
gave  a  good  outline  of  that  story  and  declared  that  the  "Book  of  Mormon" 
originated  in  another,  and  this  has  been  maintained  all  along.  Yet,  not 
withstanding'  this,  the  ministry  of  the  Mormon  Church  appear  before  the 
public  with  the  claim  that  Spaulding  wrote  a  manuscript;  that  it  has 
been  asserted  that  this  manuscript  was  stolen  from  Patterson's  printing- 
office  and  was  worked  over  into  the  "Book  of  Mormon;"  that  this  manu 
script  has  been  found;  and  that  it  bears  no  resemblance  whatever  to  the 
"Book  of  Mormon."  The  "densely  ignorant"  and  "unscrupulously  dis 
honest"  are  those  who  make  this  false  claim  in  the  face  of  the  well- 
established  facts. 


28  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Amity,  where  they  kept  a  tavern,  and  where  the  story,  as 
at  Conneaut,  became  a  great  attraction.  Here  Spanieling 
evidently  polished  it  up,  finished  it,  and  resubmitted  it 
for  publication  sometime  before  his  death  in  1816.  Mrs. 
Spaulding,  who  makes  no  mention  of  a  resubmission,  and 
who  thinks  that  Rigclon  copied  the  manuscript  when  it 
was  first  in  Patterson's  office,  does,  however,  state  that 
Patterson  did  at  one  time  tell  him  to  "make  out  a  title- 
page  and  preface."  It  seems  most  likely  that  such  advice 
would  be  given  after  the  story  had  been  finished  and 
resubmitted  for  publication.  It  is  possible  that  Spauld- 
ing,  in  polishing  and  finishing  his  story,  rewrote  it,  and 
that  it  was  the  story  rewritten  which  was  resubmitted  to 
Patterson  and  which  fell  into  Rigdon's  hands ;  while  the 
old  manuscript  may  have  been  placed  in  a  trunk,  with 
other  papers  of  Spaulding's,  which  was  sent,  after  his 
death,  to  the  home  of  his  wife's  brother,  W.  H.  Sabine, 
in  Onondaga  County,  New  York.  Smith  worked  as  a 
teamster  for  Sabine  in  1823,  and  some  have  claimed  that 
he  either  copied  or  stole  this  manuscript.  The  first  is 
very  unreasonable,  the  second  is  possible,  if  such  a  manu 
script  was  in  Sabine's  possession. 

That  one  of  Spaulding's  manuscripts  was  stolen  from 
Patterson's  office,  and  that  Spaulding  suspected  Rigdon 
of  the  theft,  is  evident  from  what  Spaulding  said  to  an 
intimate  acquaintance,  Joseph  Miller,  a  short  time  before 
his  death.  Miller  testifies :  "My  recollection  is  that 
Spaulding  left  a  transcript  of  the  manuscript  with  Pat 
terson  for  publication.  The  publication  was  delayed  until 
Spaulding  could  write  a  preface.  In  the  meantime  the 
manuscript  was  spirited  away,  and  could  not  be  found. 
Spaulding  told  me  that  Sidney  Rigdon  had  taken  it,  or 
was  suspected  of  taking  it.  I  recollect  distinctly  that 
Rigdon's  name  was  mentioned  in  connection  with  it." 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  29 

Mr.  Miller  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Spaulding,  bailed 
him  out  of  jail  when  he  was  imprisoned  for  debt,  made 
his  coffin  for  him  and  helped  bury  him  when  dead.  He 
resided  at  Amity. 

That  this  conviction  was  shared  in  by  others  is  shown 
by  what  his  attending  physician,  Cephus  Dodd,  M.  D., 
told  George  M.  French  at  Spaulding's  grave  in  1832,  two 
years  before  it  was  publicly  charged  that  Spaulding's 
story  was  the  basis  of  the  Book  of  Mormon.  He  ex 
pressed  a  strong  conviction  that  the  Book  of  Mormon 
originated  in  the  Spaulding  manuscript,  and  that  Rigdon 
was  the  one  who  transformed  the  former  into  the  latter. 

But  Mormons  insist  that  Rigdon  was  not  a  resident 
of  Pittsburg  at  the  time  it  is  claimed  Spaulding  had  busi 
ness  relations  with  Patterson,  and  so  could  not  have  been 
the  thief  even  if  such  a  manuscript  had  been  stolen  from 
the  establishment  of  Patterson.  But  this  claim  is  con 
tradicted  by  the  evidences.  Rigdon  was  born  February 
19,  1793,  at  Piney  Fork,  Allegheny  County,  Pennsyl 
vania.  The  place  of  his  birth  is  variously  estimated  at 
from  six  to  twelve  miles  from  Pittsburg.  He  lived  on 
the  farm  with  his  parents  up  to  the  time  of  his  father's 
death  in  1810,  and  after  that  until  his  twenty-sixth  year, 
or  till  1819.  He  united  with  the  Baptist  Church  at  Piney 
Fork,  May  31,  1817,  and  was  licensed  to  preach  in 
March,  1819.  The  following  year  he  was  ordained  a 
Baptist  preacher,  and  was  married  to  Phoebe  Brooks,  a 
sister  of  the  wife  of  Adamson  Bently,  then  a  Baptist 
minister,  but  afterwards  prominently  connected  with  the 
movement  of  the  Campbells.  In  1821,  in  November, 
Rigdon  received  a  call  from  the  Baptist  Church  of  Pitts 
burg,  and  began  active  duties  in  February,  1822.  On 
October  n,  1823,  he  was  excluded  for  heresy,  and  sub 
sequently,  with  the  assistance  of  Alexander  Campbell 


30  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

and  Walter  Scott,  organized  a  Disciple  church,  of  which 
he  became  pastor.  He  continued  to  preach  for  the  Dis 
ciples  up  to  the  time  that  he  became  a  Mormon  in 
November,  1830. 

Living  for  twenty-six  years  but  a  few  miles  from 
Pittsburg,  which  was  the  largest  city  and  chief  trading- 
point  in  that  part  of  the  country,  it  will  hardly  be  denied 
that  he  was  occasionally  there  before  he  became  pastor  of 
the  Baptist  Church  in  1822.  That  he  was  at  least  a  fre 
quent  visitor  to  that  city  and  a  friend  of  young  Lambdin 
during  the  time  in  which  Spaulding's  relations  with  Pat 
terson  existed,  is  proved  by  the  testimony  of  Mrs.  R.  J. 
Eichbaum,  given  at  Pittsburg,  September  18,  1879. 

"My  father,  John  Johnson,  was  postmaster  at  Pitts 
burg  for  about  eighteen  years,  from  1804  to  1822.  My 
husband,  William  Eichbaum,  succeeded  him,  and  was 
postmaster  for  about  eleven  years,  from  1822  to  1833. 
I  was  born  August  25,  1792,  and  when  I  became  old 
enough  I  assisted  my  father  in  attending  to  the  post- 
office,  and  became  familiar  with  his  duties.  From  1811 
to  1816  I  was  the  regular,  clerk  in  the  office,  assorting, 
making  up,  dispatching,  opening  and  distributing  the 
mails.  Pittsburg  was  then  a  small  town,  and  I  was  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  stated  visitors  at  the  office  who 
called  regularly  for  their  mails.  So  meager  at  that  time 
were  the  mails  that  I  could  generally  tell  without  looking 
whether  or  not  there  was  anything  for  such  persons, 
though  I  would  usually  look  in  order  to  satisfy  them.  I 
was  married  in  1815,  and  the  next  year  my  connection 
with  the  office  ceased,  except  during  the  absences  of  my 
husband.  I  knew  and  distinctly  remember  Robert  and 
Joseph  Patterson,  J.  Harrison  Lambdin,  Silas  Engles 
and  Sidney  Rigdon.  I  remember  Rev.  Mr.  Spaulding, 
but  simply  as  one  who  occasionally  called  to  inquire  for 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  31 

letters.  I  remember  there  was  an  evident  intimacy  be 
tween  Lambdin  and  Rigdon.  They  very  often  came  to 
the  office  together.  I  particularly  remember  that  they 
would  thus  come  during  the  hour  on  Sabbath  afternoon 
when  the  office  was  required  to  be  open,  and  I  remember 
feeling  sure  that  Rev.  Mr.  Patterson  knew  nothing  of 
this,  or  he  would  have  put  a  stop  to  it.  I  do  not  know 
what  position,  if  any,  Rigdon  filled  in  Patterson's  store 
or  printing-office,  but  am  well  assured  he  was  frequently, 
if  not  constantly,  there  for  a  large  part  of  the  time  when 
I  was  clerk  in  the  post-office.  I  recall  Mr.  Engles  saying 
that  'Rigdon  was  always  hanging  around  the  printing- 
office/  He  was  connected  with  the  tannery  before  he 
became  a  preacher,  though  he  may  have  continued  the 
business  whilst  preaching." 

This  testimony  is  important,  as  it  establishes  the 
whereabouts  of  Rigdon  during  those  years  in  which 
Spaulding's  relations  with  Patterson  existed,  and  also 
the  facts  that  Rigdon  was  an  intimate  acquaintance  of 
young  Lambdin  and  had  the  opportunity  of  possessing 
himself  of  the  manuscript,  being  a  frequent  lounger 
around  the  printing-office. 

That  Rigdon  afterwards  had  a  manuscript  in  his  pos 
session  which  he  was  fond  of  reading,  and  which  he  at 
one  time  at  least  declared  was  that  cf  Spaulding's,  is 
proved  by  the  testimonies  of  Rev.  John  Winter  and 
Mrs.  Amos  Dunlap.  Dr.  Winter  was  a  pioneer  preacher 
in  western  Pennsylvania,  and  at  the  time  that  Rigdon 
was  pastor  of  the  Baptist  Church  of  Pittsburg  was  a 
schoolteacher  in  that  city.  Mrs.  Dunlap  was  a  niece  of 
Mrs.  Rigdon. 

The  testimony  of  Dr.  Winter  is  as  follows:  "In  1822 
or  1823  Rigdon  took  out  of  his  desk  in  his  study  a  large 
manuscript,  stating  that  it  was  a  Bible  romance  purport- 


32  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

ing  to  be  a  history  of  the  American  Indians.  That  it  was 
written  by  one  Spaulding,  a  Presbyterian  preacher,  whose 
health  had  failed  and  who  had  taken  it  to  the  printers 
to  see  if  it  would  pay  to  publish  it.  And  that  he  had 
borrowed  it  from  the  printer  as  a  curiosity." 

On  the  7th  of  December,  1879,  Mrs.  Dunlap  made 
the  following  statement:  "When  I  was  quite  a  child  I 
visited  Mr.  Rigdon's  family.  He  married  my  aunt.  They 
at  that  time" — in  1826-7 — "lived  at  Bainbridge,  Ohio. 
During  my  visit  Mr.  Rigdon  went  to  his  bedroom  and 
took  from  a  trunk,  which  he  kept  locked,  a  certain  manu 
script.  He  came  out  into  the  other  room  and  seated  him 
self  by  the  fireplace  and  commenced  reading  it.  His  wife 
at  that  moment  came  into  the  room  and  exclaimed: 
'What !  you  are  studying  that  thing  again  ?'  or  something 
to  that  effect.  She  then  added:  'I  mean  to  burn  that 
paper.'  He  said:  'No,  indeed,  you  will  not;  this  will  be 
a  great  thing  some  day.'  Whenever  he  was  reading  this 
he  was  so  completely  occupied  that  he  seemed  entirely 
unconscious  of  anything  passing  around  him." 

That  Rigdon  foreknew  of  the  coming  out  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  at  least  two  years  before  it  appeared,  is 
proved  by  the  statements  which  he  made  to  his  brother- 
in-law,  Adamson  Bently,  and  to  Alexander  Campbell. 

In  a  letter  to  Walter  Scott,  dated  January  22,  1841, 
Bently  said:  "I  know  that  Sidney  Rigdon  told  me  that 
there  was  a  book  coming  out,  the  manuscript  of  which 
had  been  found  engraved  on  gold  plates,  as  much  as  two 
years  before  the  Mormon  book  made  its  appearance  or 
had  been  heard  of  by  me." 

This  statement  appeared  in  the  disciple  organ,  the 
Millennial  Harbinger,  in  1844,  and  was  commented  upon 
by  the  editor,  Alexander  Campbell,  as  follows :  "The  con 
versation  alluded  to  in  Brother  Bently 's  letter  of  1841 


CUMOR4H  REVISITED  33 

was  in  my  presence  as  well  as  his,  and  my  recollection 
of  it  led  me,  some  two  or  three  years  ago,  to  interrogate 
Brother  Bently  touching  his  recollection  of  it,  which 
accorded  with  mine  in  every  particular,  except  the  year 
in  which  it  occurred,  he  placing  it  in  the  summer  of  1827, 
I  in  the  summer  of  1826,  Rigdon  at  the  same  time 
observing  that  in  the  plates  dug  up  in  New  York  there 
was  an  account,  not  only  of  the  aborigines  of  this  coun 
try,  but  also  it  was  stated  that  the  Christian  religion 
had  been  preached  in  this  country  during  the  first 
century,  just  as  we  were  preaching  it  in  the  Western 
Reserve." 

Alexander  Campbell  is  a  witness  who  needs  not  to  be 
vouched  for,  and  his  testimony  in  this  matter  can  not  fail 
to  carry  weight.  The  testimonies  of  Bently  and  Camp 
bell  prove  that  Rigdon  knew  of  Smith  and  the  Book  of 
Mormon  as  early,  at  least,  as  the  year  1827,  in  September 
of  which  the  latter  claimed  to  take  the  plates  from  their 
depository;  though  Rigdon  himself  denies  that  he  ever 
saw  the  Book  of  Mormon  until  in  the  fall  of  1830. 

We  have  other  witnesses  who  testify  that  Rigdon  told 
them  of  the  coming  out  of  a  book  describing  the  ancient 
Americans  some  time  before  he  became  a  Mormon. 

Darwin  Atwater  made  the  following  statement  at 
Mantua  Station,  Ohio,  April  26,  1873:  "Soon  after  this 
the  great  Mormon  defection  came  on  us  (disciples). 
Sidney  Rigdon  preached  for  us,  and,  notwithstanding  his 
extravagantly  wild  freaks,  he  was  held  in  high  repute 
by  many.  For  a  few  months  before  his  professed  con 
version  to  Mormonism,  it  was  noticed  that  his  wild, 
extravagant  propensities  had  been  more  marked.  That 
he  knew  before  of  the  coming  of  the  Book  of  Mormon 
is  to  me  certain  from  what  he  said  during  the  first  of  his 
visits  to  my  father's  some  years  before,  He  gave  a 


34  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

wonderful  description  of  the  mounds  and  other  antiqui 
ties  found  in  some  parts  o'f  America,  and  said  that  they 
must  have  been  made  by  the  aborigines.  He  said  that 
there  was  a  book  to  be  published  containing  an  account 
of  those  things.  He  spoke  of  these  in  his  eloquent, 
enthusiastic  style  as  being  a  thing  most  extraordinary." 
And  on  June  3,  1841,  Dr.  S.  Rosa,  at  Painesville, 
Ohio,  testified  as  follows :  "In  the  early  part  of  the  year 
1830,  when  the  Book  of  Mormon  appeared,  either  in 
May  or  June,  I  was  in  company  with  Sidney  Rigdon,  and 
rode  with  him  on  horseback  a  few  miles.  Our  conver 
sation  was  principally  upon  the  subject  of  religion,  as  he 
was  at  that  time  a  very  popular  preacher  of  the  denomi 
nation  calling  themselves  disciples,  or  'Campbellites/ 
He  remarked  to  me  that  it  was  time  for  a  new  religion 
to  spring  up;  that  mankind  were  all  rife  and  ready  for 
it.  I  thought  he  alluded  to  the  Campbelhte  doctrine.  He 
said  it  would  not  be  long  before  something  would  make 
its  appearance ;  he  also  said  that  he  thought  of  leaving 
Pennsylvania,  and  should  be  absent  for  some  months.  I 
asked  him  how  long.  He  said  it  would  depend  upon 
circumstances.  I  began  to  think  a  little  strange  of  his 
remarks,  as  he  was  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  I  left  Ohio 
that  fall  and  went  to  the  State  of  New  York  to  visit  my 
friends  who  lived  in  Waterloo,  not  far  from  the  mine  of 
golden  Bibles.  In  November  I  was  informed  that  my 
old  neighbor,  E.  Partridge,  and  the  Rev.  Sidney  Rigdon 
were  in  Waterloo,  and  that  they  both  had  become  the 
dupes  of  Joe  Smith's  necromancies.  It  then  occurred  to 
me  that  Rigdon's  new  religion  had  made  its  appearance, 
and  when  I  became  informed  of  the  Spauldmg  manu 
script,  I  was  confirmed  in  the  opinion  that  Rigdon  was 
at  least  accessory,  if  not  the  principal,  in  getting  up  this 
farce." 


CVMOkAH  REVISITED  35 

It  now  remains  to  be  shown  that  Rigdon  and  Smith 
knew  of  each  other,  and  that  Rigdon  had  the  opportunity 
to  get  the  manuscript  into  Smith's  hands  in  time  for  its 
transformation  into  the  Book  of  Mormon.  This,  of 
course,  is  stoutly  denied  by  the  Mormons,  who  contend 
that  Rigdon  knew  nothing  of  either  Smith  or  his  book 
before  the  visit  of  Parley  P.  Pratt  to  Kirtland,  Ohio, 
where  Rigdon  resided,  in  November,  1830.  The  claim 
is  made  that  at  first  Sidney  opposed  the  new  religion,  but 
was  converted  by  a  vision  and  was  baptized  November 
14,  1830. 

An  intimate  acquaintance  of  Rigdon,  Zebulon  Ru 
dolph,  a  disciple  minister  and  father-in-law  of  President 
Garfield,  testifies  as  to  his  mysterious  actions  during  the 
winter  prior  to  the  appearance  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 
"During  the  winter  previous  to  the  appearance  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  Rigdon  was  in  the  habit  of  spending 
weeks  away  from  home,  going  no  one  knew  whither. 
He  often  appeared  preoccupied,  and  he  would  indulge  in 
dreamy,  visionary  talks,  which  puzzled  those  who  lis 
tened.  When  the  Book  of  Mormon  appeared  and  Rigdon 
joined  in  the  advocacy  of  the  new  religion,  the  suspicion 
was  at  once  aroused  that  he  was  one  of  the  framers  of 
the  new  doctrine,  and  that  probably  he  was  not  ignorant 
of  the  authorship  of  the  Book  of  Mormon." 

That  for  two  years  before  he  became  a  Mormon  he 
was  occasionally  'a  visitor  at  Smith's  home,  is  proved  by 
the  statements  of  Smith's  neighbors. 

Pomeroy  Tucker,  who  knew  the  Smiths  well  and  who 
helped  read  the  proofs  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  testifies: 
"A  mysterious  stranger  now  appears  at  Smith's  and 
holds  intercourse  with  the  famed  money-digger.  For  a 
considerable  time  no  intimation  of  the  name  or  purpose 
of  this  stranger  transpired  to  the  public,  not  even  to 


36  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Smith's  nearest  neighbors.  It  was  observed  by  some  that 
his  visits  were  frequently  repeated.  The  sequel  of  the 
intimacies  of  this  stranger  and  the  money-digger  will 
sufficiently  appear  hereafter.  There  was  great  conster 
nation  when  the  118  pages  of  manuscript  were  stolen 
from  Harris,  for  it  seems  to  have  been  impossible,  for 
some  unaccountable  reason,  to  retranslate  the  stolen  por 
tion.  The  reappearance  of  this  mysttrious  stranger  at 
Smith's  at  this  juncture  was  again  the  subject  of  inquiry 
and  conjecture  by  observers,  from  whom  was  withheld 
all  explanations  of  his  identity  and  purpose.  When  the 
Book  of  Mormon  appeared  Rigdon  was  an  early  convert. 
Up  to  this  time  he  had  played  his  part  in  the  background, 
and  his  occasional  visits  to  Smith's  had  been  observed  by 
the  inhabitants  as  those  of  the  mysterious  stranger.  It 
had  been  his  policy  to  remain  in  concealment  until  all 
things  were  in  readiness  for  blowing  the  trumpet  of  the 
new  gospel.  He  now  came  to  the  front  as  the  first  regu 
lar  preacher  in  Palmyra." 

On  May  2,  1879,  Abel  D.  Chase,  another  neighbor  of 
the  Smiths,  signed  a  statement  in  the  presence  of  Pliny 
T.  Sexton,  village  president  of  Palmyra,  and  J.  H.  Gil 
bert,  who  set  up  the  first  edition  of  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon,  relative  to  the  visits  of  Rigdon  to  Palmyra  before 
1830.  Of  this  statement  the  following  is  an  extract: 
"During  some  of  my  visits  at  the  Smiths,  I  saw  a 
stranger  there  who  they  said  was  Mr.  Rigdon.  He  was 
at  Smith's  several  times,  and  it  was  in  the  year  of  1827 
when  I  first  saw  him  there,  as  near  as  I  can  recollect. 
Some  time  after  that  tales  were  circulated  that  young 
Joe  had  found  or  dug  from  the  earth  a  book  of  plates 
which  the  Smiths  called  the  Golden  Bible." 

On  October  14,  1879,  Mr.  Gilbert,  mentioned  above, 
wrote  to  Mr.  Jan~.es  T.  Cobb,  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah, 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  37 

as  follows:  ''Last  evening  I  had  about  fifteen  minutes' 
conversation  with  Mr.  Lorenzo  Saunders,  of  Reading, 
Hillsdale  County,  Michigan.  He  has  been  gone  about 
thirty  years.  He  was  born  south  of  our  village  in  1811, 
and  was  a  near  neighbor  of  the  Smith  family — knew 
them  all  well;  was  in  the  habit  of  visiting  the  Smith 
boys ;  says  he  knows  that  Rigdon  was  hanging  around 
Smith's  for  eighteen  months  prior  to  the  publishing  of 
the  Mormon  Bible." 

This  chain  of  evidence  seems  quite  conclusive  in  prov 
ing  the  origin  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  in  one  of  the 
manuscripts  of  Solomon  Spaulding.  But  the  most  im 
portant  and  positive  evidence  that  we  have  that  the  Book 
of  Mormon  originated  as  claimed,  are  the  statements  of 
a  number  of  Spaulding's  relatives  and  acquaintances  to 
whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  his  writings.  These 
witnesses  establish,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  one  of  his  stories 
was  similar  in  historical  outline  to  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
and  that  it  also  contained  names  found  in  the  latter,  such 
as  Lehi,  Nephi,  Lamanites,  Nephites,  Laban,  Moroni, 
Amlicites  and  Zarahemla. 

In  1832  or  1833,  a  Mormon  preacher  came  to  Con- 
neaut,  the  old  home  of  Spaulding,  and  read  a  number  of 
extracts  from  the  Book  of  Mormon  before  a  congrega 
tion  composed,  in  part,  of  his  relatives  and  acquaintances. 
The  historical  part  was  immediately  recognized  by  his 
brother,  John  Spaulding,  and  others.  The  excitement 
was  so  intense  that  a  citizens'  meeting  was  called  and  Dr. 
Philastrus  Hurlburt  was  chosen  to  collect  the  evidence 
which  afterwards  appeared  in  Howe's  "Mormonism  Un 
veiled."  This  evidence  is  composed,  in  part,  of  the  state 
ments  of  those  who  heard  Spaulding's  manuscript  read, 
relative  to  its  similarity  to  the  Book  of  Mormon  in  certain 
names  and  in  general  historical  outline.  The  Mormons 


38  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

have  never  succeeded  in  overthrowing  these  testimonies, 
and  they  stand  to-day  as  "the  most  important  single  col 
lection  of  original  evidence  ever  made  upon  the  subject."1 

John  Spaulding  says  of  his  brother's  manuscript : 
"The  book  he  was  writing  was  entitled  'Manuscript 
Found/  of  which  he  read  to  me  many  passages.  It  was 
an  historical  romance  of  the  first  settlers  of  America, 
endeavoring  to  show  that  the  American  Indians  are  the 
descendants  of  the  Jew,  or  the  lost  tribes.  It  gave  a 
detailed  account  of  their  journey  from  Jerusalem  by  land 
and  sea  till  they  arrived  in  America  under  the  command 
of  Nephi  and  Lehi.  They  afterwards  had  quarrels  and 
contentions  and  separated  into  two  distinct  nations,  one 
of  which  he  denominated  Nephites  and  the  other  Laman- 
ites.  Cruel  and  bloody  wars  ensued,  in  which  great 
multitudes  were  slain.  They  buried  their  dead  in  large 
heaps,  which  caused  the  mounds  so  common  in  this 
country.  The  arts,  sciences  and  civilization  were  brought 
into  view  in  order  to  account  for  all  the  curious  antiqui 
ties  found  in  various  parts  of  North  and  South  America. 
I  have  recently  read  the  Book  of  Mormon,  and,  to  my 
great  surprise,  I  find  nearly  all  the  same  historical  matter, 
names,  etc.,  as  they  were  in  my  brother's  writings.  I 
well  remember  that  he  wrote  in  the  old  style  and  com 
menced  about  every  sentence  with  'And  it  came  to  pass/ 
or,  'Now  it  came  to  pass/  the  same  as  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  and,  according  to  my  best  recollection  and  be 
lief,  it  is  the  same  as  my  brother  Solomon  wrote,  with 
the  exception  of  the  religious  matter.  By  what  means  it 
has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Joseph  Smith,  Jr.,  I  am 
unable  to  determine." 

Martha  Spaulding,  the  wife  of  John  Spaulding,  tes- 

1  "The  Origin  of  the   Book  of  Mormon,   Re-examined,"  etc.,  p.   40. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  39 

tifies :  "I  was  personally  acquainted  with  Solomon  Spauld- 
ing  about  twenty  years  ago.  I  was  at  his  house  a  short 
time  before  he  left  Conneaut;  he  was  then  writing  a 
historical  novel,  founded  upon  the  first  settlers  of  Amer 
ica.  He  represented  them  as  an  enlightened  and  war 
like  people.  He  had  for  many  years  contended  that  the 
aborigines  of  America  were  the  descendants  of  some  of 
the  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  and  this  idea  he  carried  out  in 
the  book  in  question.  The  lapse  of  time  which  has  inter 
vened  prevents  my  recollecting  but  few  of  the  leading 
incidents  of  his  writings;  but  the  names  of  Nephi  and 
Lehi  are  yet  fresh  in  my  memory  as  being  the  principal 
heroes  of  his  tale.  They  were  the  officers  of  the  com 
pany  which  first  came  off  from  Jerusalem.  He  gave  a 
peculiar  account  of  their  journey  by  land  and  sea  till  they 
arrived  in  America,  after  which  disputes  arose  between 
the  chiefs  which  caused  them  to  separate  into  different 
bands,  one  of  which  was  called  Lamanites  and  the  other 
Nephites.  Between  these  were  recounted  tremendous 
battles,  which  frequently  covered  the  ground  with  the 
slain ;  and  their  being  buried  in  large  heaps  was  the  cause 
of  the  numerous  mounds  in  the  country.  Some  of  these 
people  he  represented  as  being  very  large.  I  have  read 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  which  has  brought  fresh  to  my 
recollection  the  writings  of  Solomon  Spaulding,  and  I 
have  no  manner  of  doubt  that  the  historical  part  of  it  is 
the  same  that  I  read  and  heard  read  more  than  twenty 
years  ago.  The  old,  obsolete  style  and  the  phrases  of 
'and  it  came  to  pass/  etc.,  are  the  same." 

Henry  Lake,  Spaulding's  business  partner,  testifies: 
"He  very  frequently  read  to  me  from  a  manuscript  which 
he  was  writing,  which  he  entitled  the  'Manuscript  Found,' 
and  which  he  represented  as  being  found  in  this  town.  I 
spent  many  hours  in  hearing  him  read  said  writings,  and 


40  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

became  well  acquainted  with  its  contents.  He  wished  me 
to  assist  him  in  getting  his  production  printed,  alleging 
that  a  book  of  that  kind  would  meet  with  a  rapid 
sale.  I  designed  doing  so,  but  the  forge  not  meeting 
our  anticipations,  we  failed  in  business,  when  I  .de 
clined  having  anything  to  do  with  the  publication  of 
the  book.  This  book  represented  the  American  In 
dians  as  the  descendants  of  the  lost  tribes,  gave  an 
account  of  their  leaving  Jerusalem,  their  contentions 
and  wars,  which  were  many  and  great.  One  time, 
when  he  was  reading  to  me  the  tragic  account  of 
Laban,  I  pointed  out  to  him  what  I  considered  an  in 
consistency,  which  he  promised  to  correct,  but  by  re 
ferring  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  I  find,  to  my  surprise, 
that  it  stands  there  just  as  he  read  it  to  me  then.  Some 
months  ago  I  borrowed  the  Golden  Bible,  put  it  into  my 
pocket,  carried  it  home  and  thought  no  more  about  it. 
About  a  week  after  my  wife  found  the  book  in  my  coat 
pocket  as  it  hung  up,  and  commenced  reading  it  aloud 
as  I  lay  upon  the  bed.  She  had  not  read  twenty  minutes 
when  I  was  astonished  to  find  the  same  passages  in  it 
that  Spaulding  had  read  to  me  more  than  twenty  years 
before  from  his  'Manuscript  Found.'  Since  that  I  have 
more  carefully  examined  the  said  Golden  Bible,  and  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  historical  part  of  it  is 
principally,  if  not  wholly,  taken  from  the  'Manuscript 
Found.'  I  well  recollect  telling  Mr.  Spaulding  that  the 
so  frequent  use  of  the  words,  'And  it  came  to  pass,'  'Now 
it  came  to  pass,'  rendered  it  ridiculous." 

John  N.  Miller,  who  worked  for  Spaulding  and  Lake 
at  Conneaut,  and  who  boarded  with  the  tormer,  testifies : 
"He  had  written  two  or  three  books  or  pamphlets  on  dif 
ferent  subjects,  but  that  which  more  particularly  drew 
my  attention  was  the  one  which  he  called  the  'Manuscript 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  41 

Found.'  From  this  he  would  frequently  read  some 
humorous  passages  to  the  company  present.  It  pur 
ported  to  be  the  history  of  the  first  settlement  of  America, 
before  discovered  by  Columbus.  He  brought  them  off 
from  Jerusalem  under  their  leaders,  detailing  their  travels 
by  land  and  water,  their  manners,  customs,  laws,  wars, 
etc.  He  said  that  he  designed  it  as  a  historical  novel,  and 
that  in  after  years  it  would  be  believed  by  many  people  as 
much  as  the  history  of  England.  He  soon  after  failed 
in  business,  and  told  me  that  he  should  retire  from  the 
din  of  his  creditors,  finish  his  book  and  have  it  published, 
which  would  enable  him  to  pay  his  debts  and  support  his 
family.  He  soon  after  removed  to  Pittsburg,  as  I  under 
stood.  I  have  recently  examined  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
and  find  in  it  the  writings  of  Solomon  Spaulding  from 
beginning  to  end,  but  mixed  up  with  Scripture  and  other 
religious  matters  which  I  did  not  meet  with  in  the  'Manu 
script  Found.'  Many  of  the  passages  in  the  Mormon 
book  are  verbatim  from  Spaulding,  and  others  in  part. 
The  names  of  Nephi,  Lehi,  Moroni,  and,  in  fact,  all  the 
principal  names,  are  brought  fresh  to  my  recollection  by 
the*  Golden  Lille.  When  Spaulding  divested  his  history 
of  its  fabulous  names  by  a  verbal  explanation,  he  landed 
his  people  near  the  Straits  of  Darien,  which  I  am  very 
confident  he  called  Zarahemla ;  they  were  marched  about 
that  country  for  a  length  of  time  in  which  wars  and 
great  bloodshed  ensued.  He  brought  them  across  North 
America  in  a  northeast  direction." 

Aaron  Wright  testifies:  "I  first  became  acquainted 
with  Solomon  Spaulding  in  1808  or  1809,  when  he  com 
menced  building  a  forge  on  Conneaut  Creek.  When  at 
his  house  one  day,  he  showed  and  read  to  me  a  history 
he  was  writing  of  the  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  purporting 
that  they  were  the  first  settlers  of  America,  and  that  the 


42  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Indians  were  their  descendants.  Upon  this  subject  we 
had  frequent  conversations.  He  traced  their  journey 
from  Jerusalem  to  America  as  it  is  given  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  excepting  the  religious  matter.  The  historical 
part  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  I  know  to  be  the  same  as  I 
read  and  heard  read  from  the  writings  of  Spaulding  more 
than  twenty  years  ago ;  the  names  are  especially  the  same, 
without  any  alteration.  He  told  me  his  object  was  to 
account  for  all  the  fortifications,  etc.,  to  be  found  in  this 
country,  and  said  that  in  time  it  would  be  fully  believed 
by  all  except  learned  men  and  historians.  I  once  antici 
pated  reading  his  writings  in  print,  but  little  expected 
to  see  them  in  a  new  Bible.  Spaulding  had  many  other 
manuscripts  which  I  expect  to  see  when  Smith  translates 
his  other  plate.  In  conclusion  I  will  observe  that  the 
names  of,  and  most  of  the  historical  part  of,  the  Book  of 
Mormon  were  as  familiar  to  me  before  I  read  it  as  most 
modern  history.  If  it  is  not  Spaulding's  writing,  it  is 
the  same  as  he  wrote ;  and  if  Smith  was  inspired,  I  think 
it  was  by  the  same  spirit  that  Spaulding  was,  which  he 
confessed  to  be  the  love  of  money." 

Oliver  Smith  testifies :  "When  Solomon  Spaulding 
first  came  to  this  place  (Conneaut),  he  purchased  a  tract 
of  land,  surveyed  it  out  and  commenced  selling  it.  While 
engaged  in  this  business  he  boarded  at  my  house,  in  all 
nearly  six  months.  All  his  leisure  hours  were  occupied 
in  writing  a  historical  novel  founded  upon  the  first  set 
tlers  of  this  country.  He  said  he  intended  to  trace  their 
journey  from  Jerusalem,  by  land  and  sea,  till  their  arrival 
in  America;  give  an  account  of  their  arts,  sciences,  civili 
zation,  wars  and  contentions.  In  this  way  he  would  give 
a  satisfactory  account  of  all  the  old  mounds  so  common 
to  this  country.  During  the  time  he  was  at  my  house  I 
read  and  heard  read  one  hundred  pages  or  more.  Nephi 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  43 

and  Lehi  were  by  him  represented  as  leading  characters 
when  they  first  started  for  America.  Their  main  object 
was  to  escape  the  judgments  which  they  supposed  were 
coming  upon  the  old  world.  But  no  religious  matter  was 
introduced,  as  I  now  recollect.  .  .  .  When  I  heard  the 
historical  part  of  it  (Book  of  Mormon)  related,  I  at  once 
said  it  was  the  writings  of  Solomon  Spaulding.  Soon 
after  I  obtained  the  book,  and,  on  reading  it,  found  much 
of  it  the  same  as  Spaulding  had  written  more  than  twenty 
years  before." 

Nahum  Howard  testifies :  "I  first  became  acquainted 
with  Solomon  Spaulding  in  December  1810.  After  that 
time  I  frequently  saw  him  at  his  house,  and  also  at  my 
house.  I  once,  in  conversation  with  him,  expressed  a 
surprise  at  not  having  any  account  of  the  ;nhabitants 
once  in  this  country,  who  erected  the  old  forts,  mounds, 
etc.  He  then  told  me  that  he  was  writing  a  history  of 
that  race  of  people,  and  afterwards  frequently  showed 
me  his  writings,  which  I  read.  I  have  lately  read  the 
Book  'of  Mormon,  and  believe  it  to  be  the  same  as  Spauld 
ing  wrote,  except  the  religious  part.  He  told  me  that  he 
intended  to  get  his  writings  published  in  Pittsburg,  and 
he  thought  that  in  one  century  from  that  time  it  would 
be  believed  as  much  as  any  other  history." 

Artemus  Cunningham  testifies :  "In  the  month  of  Oc 
tober,  1811,  I  went  from  the  township  of  Madison  to 
Conneaut,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  debt  due  me 
from  Solomon  Spaulding.  I  tarried  with  him  nearly  two 
days  for  the  purpose  of  accomplishing  my  object,  which 
I  was  finally  unable  to  do.  I  found  him  destitute  of  the 
means  of  paying  his  debts.  His  only  hcpe  of  ever  paying 
his  debts  appeared  to  be  upon  the  sale  of  a  book  which 
he  had  been  writing.  He  endeavored  to  convince  me  from 
the  nature  and  character  of  the  work  that  it  would  meet 


4/  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

with  a  ready  sale.  Before  showing  me  his  manuscripts, 
he  went  into  a  verbal  relation  of  its  outlines,  saying  that 
it  was  a  fabulous  or  romantic  history  of  the  first  settle 
ment  of  this  country,  and  as  it  purported  to  have  been 
a  record  found  buried  in  the  earth,  or  in  a  cave,  he  had 
adopted  the  ancient  or  Scripture  style  of  writing.  He 
then  presented  his  manuscripts,  when  we  sat  down  and 
spent  a  good  share  of  the  night  in  reading  them  and 
conversing  upon  them.  I  well  remember  the  name  of 
Nephi,  which  appeared  to  be  the  principal  hero  of  the 
story.  The  frequent  repetition  of  the  phrase  T  Nephi' 
I  recollect  as  distinctly  as  though  it  was  but  yesterday, 
although  the  general  features  of  the  story  have  passed 
from  my  memory  through  the  lapse  of  twenty-two  years. 
He  attempted  to  account  for  the  numerous  antiquities 
which  are  found  upon  this  continent,  and  remarked  that 
after  this  generation  had  passed  away,  his  account  of  the 
first  inhabitants  of  America  would  be  considered  as  au 
thentic  as  any  other  history.  The  Mormon  Bible  I  have 
partially  examined  and  am  fully  of  the  opinion  that  Solo 
mon  Spaulding  had  written  its  outlines  before  he  left 
Conneaut." 

These  affidavits  were  first  published  in  Howe's 
"Mormonism  Unveiled,"  in  1834.  And,  notwithstanding 
the  Mormons  have  put  forth  every  effort  to  disprove  any 
connection  between  Spaulding's  story  and  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  they  have  never  succeeded  in  showing  that  these 
statements  were  not  made  as  claimed.  All  that  they  have 
ever  done  is  simply  blusteringly  to  deny  the  testimony, 
and  this  is  characteristic  of  Mormonism  in  its  dealings 
with  all  contradictory  evidence.  But  the  testimonies  of 
these  witnesses  stand  unimpeached  as  convicting  evidence 
against  the  imposture. 

Since   1834  other  acquaintances  of   Spaulding,   who 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  45 

knew  him  either  at  Conneaut  or  Amity,  and  who  heard 
his  story  read,  have  added  their  testimonies  to  those 
already  given  upon  the  close  resemblance  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  to  the  "Manuscript  Found." 

Joseph  Miller,  of  Amity,  under  date  of  February  6, 
1879,  as  reported- in  the  Pittsburg  Telegraph,  says:  "On 
hearing  read  the  account  from  the  book  [of  Mormon] 
of  the  battle  between  the  Amlicites  and  the  Nephites, 
in  which  the  soldiers  of  one  army  had  placed  a  red 
mark  on  their  foreheads  to  distinguish  them  from  their 
enemies,  it  seems  to  reproduce  in  my  mind,  not  only 
the  narration,  but  the  very  words  as  they  had  been  im 
pressed  upon  my  mind  by  the  reading  of  Spaulding's 
manuscript." 

On  April  21,  1879,  the  following  from  Redick  McKee 
appeared  in  the  Washington  (Pa.)  Reporter,  under  date 
of  April  14,  1879:  "In  the  fall  of  1814  I  arrived  in  the 
village  of  'Good  Will,'  and  for  eighteen  or  twenty  months 
sold  goods  in  the  store  previously  occupied  by  Mr.  Thos. 
Brice.  It  was  on  Main  Street,  a  few  doors  west  of 
Spaulding's  tavern,  where  I  was  a  boarder.  With  both 
Mr.  Solomon  Spaulding  and  his  wife  I  was  quite  inti 
mately  acquainted.  I  recollect  quite  well  Mr.  Spaulding 
spending  much  time  in  writing  (on  sheets  of  paper  torn 
out  of  an  old  book)  what  purported  to  be  a  veritable  his 
tory  of  the  nations  or  tribes  who  inhabited  Canaan.  He 
called  it  'Lost  History  Found,'  'Lost  Manuscript,'  or  some 
such  name,  not  disguising  that  it  was  wholly  a  work  of 
the  imagination,  written  to  amuse  himself  and  without 
any  immediate  view  to  publication.  I  was  struck  with 
the  minuteness  of  his  details  and  the  apparent  truthful 
ness  and  sincerity  of  the  author.  I  have  an  indistinct 
recollection  of  the  passage  referred  to  by  Mr.  Miller 
about  the  Amlicites  making  a  cross  with  red  paint  on 


46  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

their  foreheads  to  distinguish  them  from  enemies  in  the 
confusion  of  battle." 

And  Rev.  Abner  Jackson,  on  December  20,  1880, 
made  the  following  statement  which  was  published  in  the 
Washington  (Pa.)  Reporter  of  January  7,  1881  :  "Spauld- 
ing  frequently  read  his  manuscript  to  the  neighbors  and 
amused  them  as  he  progressed  with  the  work.  He  wrote 
it  in  Bible  style.  'And  it  came  to  pass'  occurred  so  often 
that  some  called  him  'Old  Come-to-pass.'  The  Book  of 
Mormon  follows  the  romance  too  closely  to  be  a  stranger. 
In  both,  many  persons  appear  having  the  same  name,  as 
Moroni,  Mormon,  Nephites,  Laman,  Lamanites,  Nephi 
and  others.  Here  we  are  presented  with  romance  second 
called  the  Book  of  Mormon,  telling  the  same  story  of  the 
same  people,  traveling  from  the  same  plain,  in  the  same 
way,  having  the  same  difficulties  and  destination,  with 
the  same  wars,  same  battles  and  same  results,  with  thou 
sands  upon  thousands  slain.  Then  see  the  Mormon  ac 
count  of  the  last  battle  at  Cumorah,  where  all  the  right 
eous  were  slain.  How  much  this  resembles  the  closing 
scene  in  the  'Manuscript  Found.'  The  most  singular  part 
of  the  whole  matter  is  that  it  follows  the  romance  so 
closely,  with  this  difference :  The  first  claims  to  be  a 
romance;  the  second  claims  to  be  a  revelation  of  God,  a 
new  Bible.  When  it  was  brought  to  Conneaut  and  read 
there  in  public,  old  Squire  Wright  heard  it  and  exclaimed, 
'Old  Come-to-pass  has  come  to  life  again.'  Here  was  the 
place  where  Spaulding  wrote  and  read  his  manuscript  to 
the  neighbors  for  their  amusement,  and  Squire  Wright 
had  often  heard  him  read  from  his  romance.  This  was 
in  1832,  sixteen  years  after  Spaulding's  death.  This 
Squire  Wright  lived  on  a  little  farm  just  outside  of  the 
little  village.  I  was  acquainted  with  him  for  twenty- 
five  years.  I  lived  on  his  farm  when  I  was  a  boy  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  47 

attended  school  in  his  village.  I  am  particular  to  notice 
these  things  to  show  that  I  had  an  opportunity  of  know 
ing  what  I  am  writing  about." 

The  evidence  in  the  case  goes  to  show  that  Spaulding 
wrote  several  manuscripts;  that  one  of  these  closely  re 
sembled  the  Book  of  Mormon  in  general  historical  outline 
and  proper  names,  differing  from  it  in  not  possessing 
Scriptural  quotations  and  religious  matter ;  that  this 
manuscript  was  placed  in  the  printing  establishment  of 
one  Robert  Patterson,  of  Pittsburg,  from  which  it  mys 
teriously  disappeared;  that  Spaulding  suspected  Rigdon 
of  the  theft;  that  at  the  time  the  manuscript  was  in 
Patterson's  ofBce  Rigdon  lived  in  the  vicinity  of  Pitts-- 
burg  and  was  intimate  with  J.  Harrison  Lambdin,  one 
of  Patterson's  employes ;  that  Rigdon  had  in  his  posses-^ 
sion  a  manuscript  which  he  told  Dr.  Winter  had  been 
written  by  Spaulding ;  that  he  mentioned  the  coming  out 
of  a  book  describing  American  antiquities  and  giving  an, 
account  of  the  first  people  at  least  two  years  before  the 
Book  of  Mormon  appeared ;  and  that  he  had  communica 
tion  with  the  Smiths  before  he  openly  united  with  the 
Mormons  in  November,  1830.  It  would  seem  that  this 
chain  of  evidence  would  be  sufficient  to  put  x.he  claim, 
that  the  Book  of  Mormon  originated  in  one  of  Spauld- 
ing's  romances,  beyond  the  reach  of  reasonable  doubt. 

OUTLINE  OF   BOOK   OF    MORMON    HISTORY. 

Following  the  plan  of  the  Bible,  the  Book  of  Mormon 
is  divided  into  books  of  which  there  are  fifteen:  I  Nephi, 
2  Nephi,  Jacob,  Enos,  Jarom,  Omni,  Words  of  Mormon, 
Mosiah,  Alma,  Helaman,  Nephi,  Disciple  of  Nephi,  Mor 
mon,  Ether  and  Moroni.  Historically  they  cover  a  period 
of  twenty-six  hundred  years  and  describe  two  distinct 
nations  of  people,  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites ;  the  Book 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


of  Ether  being  an  abridged  history  of  the  former,  the 
other  fourteen  of  the  latter. 

According  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  first  inhabit 
ants  of  America  came  from  the  Tower  of  Babel  under 
Jared  and  his  brother,  the  latter  a  prophet  of  the  Lord. 
With  their  following  they  journeyed  from  Babel  north- 


JAREDITE  LANDS 


FIGURE  i. 


ward  into  Armenia,  from  thence  westward  over  southern 
Europe  to  Spain  (the  Book  of  Mormon,  Land  of  Mori- 
ancumer),  where  they  dwelt  on  the  seashore  for  four 
years.  At  the  close  of  this  period,  by  the  command  of 
God,  they  built  eight  peculiarly  shaped  "barges"  and  put 
to  sea,  landing,  after  a  voyage  of  344  days,  upon  "the 
east  coast  of  Central  America,  near  the  mouth  of  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  49 

river  Motagua." — Report  of  the  Committee  on  American 
Archaeology,  p.  70. 

Ether  gives  the  following  description  of  the  barges  in 
which  they  are  said  to  have  come :  "And  they  were  small, 
and  they  were  light  upon  the  water,  even  like  unto  the 
lightness  of  a  fowl  upon  the  water;  and  they  were  built 
after  a  manner  that  they  were  exceeding  tight,  even  that 
they  would  hold  water  like  unto  a  dish ;  and  the  bottom 
thereof  was  tight  like  unto  a  dish ;  and  the  sides  thereof 
were  tight  like  unto  a  dish;  and  the  ends  thereof  were 
peaked;  and  the  top  thereof  was  tight  like  unto  a  dish; 
and  the  length  thereof  was  the  length  of  a  tree :  and  the 
door  thereof,  when  it  was  shut,  was  tight  like  unto  a 
dish." — Ether  I  :  5. 

The  brother  of  Jared  was  puzzled  to  know  how  the 
occupants  were  to  get  air,  so  the  Lord  said:  "Behold, 
thou  shalt  make  a  hole  in  the  top  thereof,  and  also  in  the 
bottom  thereof;  and  when  thou  shalt  suffer  for  air,  thou 
shalt  unstop  the  hole  thereof,  and  receive  air." — Ether 
1:6. 

For  light  the  Lord  touched  with  his  ringer  sixteen 
small  stones  which  Jared's  brother  had  "moulten"  out  of 
a  rock,  and  these,  placed  one  in  each  end  of  the  eight 
barges,  gave  light  to  those  within. 

Upon  reaching  Central  America  the  Jaredites 
founded  a  government  and  began  to  settle  the  country. 
Their  Land  of  Moron  comprised  about  the  present 
States  of  Tabasco,  Chiapas,  Guatemala  and  western 
Honduras.  Their  capital  was  also  called  Moron  and  is 
identified  by  the  Josephite  Committee  on  American  Ar 
chaeology  with  either  Copan  or  Quirigua,  two  ancient 
cities  now  in  ruins.1  The  peninsula  of  Yucatan  was 


Report,  p.   70. 


50  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

called  the  Land  of  Nehor ;  Mexico,  the  Land  of  Heth ; 
and  the  United  States  is  named  on  the  Committee's  maps 
the  Land  Northward. 

Their  oldest  and  richest  communities  were  in  the  Land 
of  Moron,  but  large  and  flourishing  Jaredite  centers  ex 
isted  where  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati  now 
stand,  and  Jaredite  people  and  culture  were  spread 
throughout  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  Valleys.  The  Com 
mittee  say :  "It  appears  from  the  record  that  at  this  time 
Central  America  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  central 
portion  of  the  United  States  were  settled  by  the  Jaredites  ; 
in  the  United  States,  probably,  they  occupied  mainly  in 
the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi,  Missouri  and  Ohio  Rivers, 
covering  largely  their  watersheds.  Omer  and  Nimrah 
'fled  out  of  the  land,'  evidently  from  the  countries  already 
settled,  and  probably  the  chief  centers  were  at  New  Or 
leans,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  except  in  Mexico  and  Central 
America,  where  the  oldest  and  richest  communities 
dwelt." — Report,  p.  72. 

The  culture  of  the  Jaredites  was  of  a  superior  order. 
They  understood  the  uses  of  metals,  iron  included.  They 
manufactured  silks  and  linen  goods.  They  had  flocks  and 
herds,  horses,  asses,  elephants,  "curelcms"  and  "cumoms." 
They  had  a  well-organized  government.  They  worshiped, 
and  had  intercourse  with,  God.  They  had  secret  so 
cieties,  and  they  employed  a  phonetic  system  of  writing. 
All  of  which  belong  to  a  considerable  degree  of  civili 
zation. 

After  dwelling  here  for  sixteen  hundred  years,  being 
ruled  over  by  thirty  rulers,1  suffering  from  dissensions  and 
revolts,  and  spreading  over  the  extensive  territory  men 
tioned,  they  came  to  an  end  in  a  civil  war  in  a  battle 


"Joseph  the  Seer,"  p.   128. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  51 

fought  in  600  B.  C,  at  Hill  Ramah  in  western  New  York, 
in  which  thousands  were  slain  in  a  few  days,  only  two 
escaping — Coriantumr,  one  of  the  generals,  and  Ether, 
a  prophet  of  the  Lord.  The  former  was  afterwards  dis 
covered  by  the  people  of  Zarahemla  and  dwelt  with  them 
"nine  moons;"  Ether  wrote  a  history  of  his  people  on  a 
set  of  plates  and  hid  them  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
were  discovered  by  their  successors.  This,  in  brief,  is 
the  history  of  the  first  colony  of  immigrants  that  came  to 
America,  as  given  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  and  outlined 
in  Mormon  works. 

The  book  further  claims  that,  in  the  first  year  of  the 
reign  of  Zedekiah,  king  of  Judah,  there  was  dwelling  at 
Jerusalem  a  prophet,  Lehi  by  name,  a  righteous  man.  On 
account  of  the  wickedness  of  the  city,  God  commanded 
him  to  take  his  family  and  depart  into  the  wilderness  of 
Arabia  that  he  might  escape  the  calamities  about  to  be 
fall  the  pecple  on  account  cf  their  sins.  His  family 
consisted  of  his  wife,  Saraiah,  and  his  four  sons, 
Laman,  Lemuel,  Sam  and  Nephi.  The  first  two 
were  obstinate  and  irreligious ;  the  latter  two  were 
dutiful  and  obedient.  After  their  departure  the  sons 
visited  Jerusalem  at  two  different  times.  They  went  first 
to  obtain  a  set  of  brass  plates,  containing  a  genealogy  of 
their  fathers,  which  were  not  obtained,  however,  until 
Laban,  their  keeper,  had  been  slain  by  Nephi,  when  they 
returned  to  their  father  bringing  the  plates  and  Zoram, 
Laban's  servant,  who  consented  to  return  with  ihem.  By 
the  plates  Lehi  discovered  that  he  was  of  the  tribe  of 
Manasseh.  The  sons  visited  Jerusalem  a  second  time  and 
brought  back  with  them  Ishmael  and  his  family,  which 
consisted  of  two  sons  and  five  unmarried  daughters,  who 
became  the  wives  of  Lehi's  four  sons  and  Zoram.  Not 
long  after  reaching  the  wilderness  Ishmael  died  and 


CUM  OR  API   REVISITED 


two  more  sons,  Jacob  and  Joseph,  were  born  to  Lehi. 

Eight  years  having  elapsed  since  Lehi  left  Jerusalem, 

the  little  company,  which  now  numbered  eight  families, 


MAP 

NEPHITE  LANDS 


FIGURE  2. 


by  the  command  of  God,  built  a  ship,  launched  out  into 
the  Indian  Ocean,  and,  after  a  stormy  voyage,  during 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  S3 

which  the  wicked  Laman  and  Lemuel  rebelled  against 
their  brother  Nephi,  landed  "on  the  coast  of  Chili,  not  far 
from  the  thirtieth  degree,  south  latitude." — Report,  p.  n. 

Here  they  found  all  manner  of  beasts — the  cow,  ox, 
ass,  horse,  goat  and  wild  goat;  also  such  ores  as  gold, 
silver,  iron  and  copper.  Nephi  began  immediately  to  keep 
a  record  of  his  people,  for  which  purpose  he  made  a  set 
cf  plates  and  began  to  engrave  thereon  their  history  in  the 
"Reformed  Egyptian"  language.  Lehi,  soon  afterwards, 
having  waxed  old,  called  his  family  together,  blessed  them 
in  true  patriarchal  style,  gave  up  the  ghost  and  was 
buried.  With  his  death  the  bond  that  held  the  two  con 
trary  factions  together  was  broken  and  they  drifted  apart, 
Laman  and  Lemuel  and  the  two  sons  of  Ishmael  with 
their  families  being  called  Lamanites ;  and  Nephi,  Sam 
and  Zoram  and  their  families,  with  Jacob  and  Joseph  and 
their  sisters,  being  called  Nephites.  The  former  were 
savage,  indolent  and  irreligious,  because  of  which  God 
cursed  them  with  a  dark  skin  and  they  "did  seek  in  the 
wilderness  for  beasts  of  prey."  They  were  the  ancestors 
of  our  American  Indians.  The  latter  were  industrious, 
.religious  and  progressive,  because  of  which  God  blessed 
them  abundantly. 

After  the  separation,  the  Lamanites  established  them 
selves  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Rioja  in  the  Argentine 
Republic,1  while  the  Nephites  went  a  thousand  miles 
farther  north  and  founded  the  city  of  Nephi  in  the  pres 
ent  country  of  Peru.  The  Committee  identify  this  city 
with  the  ancient  city  of  Cuzco.  Here  they  built  a  temple 
like  unto  Solomon's  and  instituted  a  worship  similar  to 
the  Jewish,  with  Jacob  and  Joseph  as  priests.  From 
Nephi,  being  a  prolific  people,  they  spread  over  the  ad- 


Report,  p.  19. 


54  CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED 

jacent  country,  and  what  is  now  northern  Chili,  western 
Bolivia  and  Peru  was  included  in  the  Land  of  Nephi.  Of 
the  ancient  cities  of  this  region,  the  Committee  identify 
Huanuco,  Riobamba,  Gran-Chimu  and  Cuelap-Tingo, 
with  the  Book  of  Mormon  cities,  Ishmael,  Amulon,  Mid- 
doni  and  Lehi-Nephi,  respectively.  After  dwelling  in  this 
region  for  four  hundred  years,  till  about  200  B.  C,  under 
pressure  from  the  Lamanites  to  the  south  of  them,  they 
moved  northward  into  the  Land  of  Zarahemla,  now  the 
United  States  of  Colombia  and  western  Venezuela,  where 
they  united  with  the  people  of  Zarahemla,  or  Mulokites, 
who  had  come  from  Jerusalem  about  the  time  of  its 
destruction  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  under  Mulek,  one  of 
Zedekiah's  sons.  This  people  had  landed  upon  the  west 
coast  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  but  had  migrated  south 
ward,  instead  of  northward,  and  had  settled  in  the  north 
ern  part  of  South  America.  It  was  among  this  people 
that  Coriantumr,  the  Jaredite,  dwelt  "nine  moons."  The 
Nephites  and  Mulokites  from  that  time  forward  were 
one  people,  the  Nephite  king,  Mosiah,  being  their  first 
joint  ruler.  The  Book  of  Mormon  river  Sidon  is  identi 
fied  with  the  Magdalena.  From  Zarahemla  the  Nephites 
spread  over  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  their  Land  Bounti 
ful  ;  Nicaragua  and  eastern  Honduras,  their  Land  Desola 
tion  ;  San  Salvador,  their  Land  Joshua ;  Guatemala  and 
western  Honduras,  their  Land  Jashon ;  Chiapas  and  Ta 
basco,  their  Land  Antum  ;  Mexico,  their  Land  Shem  ;  and 
the  United  States,  their  Land  of  Many  Waters.  Thus, 
they  inhabited  the  territory  previously  occupied  by  the 
Jaredites,  with  the  probable  exception  of  Yucatan,  and, 
in  addition  to  it,  South  America,  which  was  not  inhabited 
by  their  predecessors,  but  was  kept  by  them  as  a  reserve 
for  game.  The  Committee  say,  on  the  settlements  north 
of  Mexico :  "On  entering  the  United  States,  the  Nephites 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  55 

settled  largely  in  the  same  sections  inhabited  by  the 
Jaredites,  the  oldest  mound  builders,  and  their  march  to 
their  final  conflict  was  along  the  same  lines." — Report, 
p.  65. 

A  Nephite  by  the  name  of  Hagoth,  an  "exceeding 
curious  man,"  fitted  out  a  ship  and  sailed  from  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  into  the  Pacific  and  was  never  heard 
of  again.  Some  Mormons  have  conceived  the  idea  that 
he  was  the  mythical  Hawaii  who  is  said  to  have  settled 
the  Sandwich  Islands.1 

After  Christ's  resurrection  he  is  said  to  have  appeared 
to  the  Nephites ;  to  have  set  his  church  in  order  with 
twelve  apostles :  and  to  have  inaugurated  a  veritable 
millennium,  for,  so  widespread  was  the  revival  imme 
diately  following  his  appearance,  that  there  ceased  to  be 
"Lamanites  or  any  manner  of  ites."  But  alas  !  the  bloom 
ing  millennium  was  soon  cut  short  and  the  Lamanites 
went  back  to  their  old  ways,  and  began  to  persecute  the 
Nephites  with  relentless  fury,  which  resulted  in  the 
latter's  final  overthrow,  in  385  A.  D.,  on  the  same  field 
where  a  thousand  years  before  the  Jaredites  had  been 
exterminated.  A  few  escaped  and  fled  southward,  but 
were  afterwards  destroyed,  though  some  Mormons  as 
sert  that  they  were  absorbed  among  the  Lamanites  and 
that  from  them  came  the  tribes  of  "white  Indians,"  such 
as  the  Mandans  and  Menominees. 

Moroni,  the  last  of  the  Nephites  of  royal  blood,  com 
pleted  the  record  of  his  people  upon  the  plates,  adding  an 
abridgment  of  the  record  of  Ether,  and  deposited  them  in 
"Hill  Cumorah"  (the  Jaredite  Ramah  or  Riplah,  known 
to  vulgar  Gentiles  as  "Mormon  Hill,"  which  lies  south 
east  of  Palmyra,  N.  Y.)  in  420  A.  D.,  from  which,  it  is 


"Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,"   p.   206. 


56  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

claimed,  they  were  taken  by  Joseph  Smith  on  September 
22,  1827. 

The  Nephites,  like  the  Jaredites,  were  highly  cultured.. 
They  worshiped  the  one  true  God.  They  observed  the 
Jewish  law  up  to  the  time  of  Christ,  when  they  became 
Christians.  They  worked  the  metals.  They  built  temples, 
synagogues,  sanctuaries  and  houses  of  cement.  They 
were  agriculturists,  warriors  and  tradesmen.  And  they 
had  a  phonetic  system  of  writing. 

Reader,  this  is,  briefly,  the  history  of  ancient  America 
as  given  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  and  outlined  in  the  Re 
port  of  the  Committee  on  American  Archaeology  and 
other  Mormon  works.  There  are  slight  differences  be 
tween  the  Mormon  churches  in  the  establishment  of  cer 
tain  boundary  lines  and  the  location  of  certain  places, 
but,  in  the  main,  this  will  be  considered  a  fair  outline 
of  ancient  American  history  by  350,000  human  souls. 
Will  it  stand  the  test  of  investigation?  We  shall  see. 

THE.  BOOK    OF    MORMON    AND    AMERICAN    ARCHAEOLOGY. 

The  Book  of  Mormon,  coming  to  us  with  the  claim 
of  divine  inspiration,  demands  our  acceptance  under  pain 
of  eternal  damnation.  Apostle  Orson  Pratt  sets  the  case 
fairly  before  us,  from  the  Mormon  point  of  view,  in  these 
words:  "The  nature  of  the  message  in  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon  is  such,  that,  if  true,  no  one  can  possibly  be  saved 
and  reject  it;  if  false,  no  one  can  possibly  be  saved  and 
receive  it.  Therefore,  every  soul  in  all  the  world  is 
equally  interested  in  ascertaining  its  truth  or  falsity." 
— O.  Pratt' s  Works,  p.  68. 

It  is  also  conceded  by  Mormons  themselves  that  the 
integrity  of  their  system  is  so  dependent  upon  the  authen 
ticity  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  that  to  prove  it  false  is  to 
overthrow  the  entire  Mormon  superstructure.  "It  is  very 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  57 

evident,"  says  Elder  George  Reynolds,  "that  if  the  Book 
of  Mormon  is  not  of  God,  then  the  whole  superstructure 
of  Mormonism  is,  of  necessity,  a  gross  imposture,  the 
crudest  of  religious  deception  that  for  many  centuries 
has  misled  humanity." — The  Myth  of  the  Manuscript 
Found,  pp.  9,  10. 

The  claims  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  must  be  con 
sidered  from  four  points  of  view : 

First,  from  the  viewpoint  of  a  possible  human  author 
ship.  Did  it  originate  in  the  writings  of  Solomon  Spauld- 
ing? 

Secondly,  from  the  viewpoint  of  itself  as  a  religio- 
literary  production.  Do  its  structure,  doctrinal  teachings 
and  moral  precepts  evince  its  divine  inspiration? 

Thirdly,  from  the  viewpoint  of  prophecy.  Are  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  which  are 
applied  to  its  "coming  forth,"  rightly  applied  or  mis 
applied  ? 

And  fourthly,  from  the  viewpoint  of  American  ar 
chaeology  and  ethnology.  Are  its  historical  statements 
substantiated  by  archaeological  and  ethnological  research? 

It  is  my  intention,  in  the  following  pages,  to  consider 
its  claims  from  the  viewpoint  of  American  archaeology 
and  ethnology,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  it  is 
not  a  credible  history  of  ancient  America,  but  a  work  of 
pure  fiction,  false  in  its  historical  accounts,  and  in  its 
descriptions  of  the  customs,  habits,  religion,  government 
and  character  of  the  first  Americans.  In  order  to  ac 
complish  this,  I  shall  put  before  the  reader  the  facts  as 
established  by  the  latest  research  as  these  are  given  in 
the  works  of  the  latest  and  best  authors.  The  opinions 
of  the  older  writers  will  be  made  use  of  only  so  far  as 
they  agree  with  these  facts. 

Mormon  writers  confidently  assert  that  the  data  ac- 


58  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

quired  by  scientific  investigation  in  the  fields  of  American 
archaeology  and  ethnology  fully  substantiate  the  claims 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon.  This  will  be  seen  in  the  follow 
ing  quotations  from  authorities  in  the  two  great  branches 
of  the  Mormon  Church. 

"The  Book  of  Mormon  statements  have  since  been 
verified  by  facts,  the  later  and  best  authorities  concurring 
with  the  Book  of  Mormon  idea." — Report  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  American  Archaeology,  p.  96. 

"The  historical  accounts  recorded  in  the  book  are 
being  rapidly  substantiated  by  American  archaeological 
research." — Elder  C.  J.  Hunt  in  Opinions  of  Sixty-five 
Leading  Ministers  and  Bible  Commentators  on  Isa.  29: 
11-24  and  Ezek.  37:  15-20,  pp.  3,  4. 

"The  students  of  American  antiquities  will  find  upon 
a  careful  examination  that  no  discovery  has  thus  far  been 
made  which  in  a  single  instance  contradicts  the  record  of 
America's  great  and  glorious  past,  as  found  in  the  Book 
of  Mormon." — Elder  R.  Etsenhouser,  in  "The  Book  Un 
sealed,"  p.  78. 

"So  the  'Book  of  Mormon'  still  stands  like  a  very 
Gibraltar,  undisturbed  by  ridicule,  scatching  criticism, 
or  scientific  demonstration." — Apostle  W.  H.  Kelley,  in 
"Presidency  and  Priesthood,"  p.  286. 

"For  not  only  are  the  principles  of  the  gospel  of  Christ 
great  and  eternal  truths,  which  we  preach,  but  the  book 
under  discussion,  as  the  history  of  ancient  American 
peoples,  is  also  true  and  fully  substantiated,  not  only  by 
Bible  prophecies,  but  also  by  abundant  discoveries  of 
science,  by  a  wonderful  array  of  archaeological  ruins  and 
antiquarian  remains,  by  many  historical  facts  developed 
since  its  publication,  by  the  traditional  history  of  tribes 
and  nations,  and,  finally,  by  the  internal  evidences  found 
in  the  book  itself,  they  being  historical,  geographical  and 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


59 


doctrinal  in  their  character,  and  strong  in  proof." — Elder 
H.  A.  Stebbins,  in  "Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,"  p.  3. 

President  W.  W.  Blair  declares  that  the  facts  stated 
in  the  book  have  since  been  "fully  attested  by  the  anti 
quarian  and  the  geologist." — Joseph  the  Seer,  p.  175. 

And  Apostle  Orson  Pratt  asserts  that  "there  can  net 
be  found  one  truth  among  all  the  gleanings  of  antiquity 
that  clashes  with  the  historical  truths  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon." — O.  Pratt' s  Works,  p.  153. 

These  extracts  from  the  works  of  prominent  Mormon 
writers  on  the  relation  of  the  sciences  of  archaeology  and 
ethnology  to  the  question  of  the  credibility  and  historical 
accuracy  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  show  the  interest  of 
the  Mormon  people  in,  and  their  expectations  from,  ar 
chaeological  and  ethnological  research. 


60  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Origin  of  Man  in  America — The  Antiquity  of  Man  in 
America — How  Man  Reached  America — The  Historic  Tribes 
and  Nations  of  America — The  Ruins  of  America — Tradi 
tional  History  of  America — Archaeological  Knowledge  in  1830. 

When  the  Europeans  discovered  America  they  found 
here  nations  of  various  degrees  of  culture,  from  the  low 
est  savage  who  eked  out  a  miserable  existence  by  hunting 
and  fishing,  to  the  semi-civilized  tribes  of  Peru,  Central 
America  and  Mexico.  These  all  belonged  to  one  race, 
separated  from  the  peoples  of  the  Old  World  in  a  body, 
and  partook  of  the  same  general  physical  characteristics. 
Dr.  Brinton,  professor  of  American  archaeology  and  lin 
guistics  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  remarks  upon 
the  homogeneousness  of  the  American  race  as  follows: 
"The  American  race  is  physically  more  homogeneous  than 
any  other  on  the  globe.  There  is  no  mistaking  a  group 
of  American  Indians,  whether  they  come  from  Chili  or 
from  Canada,  from  the  shores  of  Hudson  Bay  or  the 
banks  of  the  Amazon.  And  this  superficial  resemblance 
is  a  correct  indication  of  what  a  close  anatomical  study 
confirms." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  52. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this  general  physical  uniformity, 
there  arc  wide  inter-racial  variations.  The  majority  of 
American  tribes  are  prevailingly  meso-  or  brachycephal- 
ic,  but  in  a  few  the  long-headed  type*  of  skull  prevails. 
Of  these,  Brinton  mentions  the  Eskimo  of  the  north,  the 
Tapuyas  of  Brazil  and  the  Aymaras  of  Peru,  while  the 
cephalic  index  of  the  Yumas  has  been  noticed  to  run  as 
low  as  68.  In  color  the  American  tribes  vary  from  a 
light  ash  color  to  a  very  dark,  almost  black,  shade  of 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  61 

complexion.  These  variations  are  not,  however,  in  refer 
ence  to  climate,  the  Yurucares  of  the  torrid  zone  being 
light,  while  the  Kaws  of  the  north  temperate  are  very 
dark.  The  hair  is  generally  coarse,  straight  and  black, 
but  cases  are  known  in  which  it  is  fine  and  silky  and  even 
wavy  or  curly.  When  carefully  examined,  it  reveals  an 
undercolor  of  red  very  noticeable  in  some  tribes,  espe 
cially  among  the  children.  The  growth  is  usually  thick 
and  strong  on  the  head,  but  scanty  on  the  body  and  face, 
and  yet  instances  are  recorded  of  tribes  with  full  beards. 
Within  some  tribes  individuals  have  been  observed  with 
light  hair  and  light  eyes.  The  Americans  also  vary  in 
stature,  the  Patagonians  being  frequently  over  six  feet  in 
height,  while  the  Warraus  are  below  medium ;  though  no 
tribes  are  as  dwarfish  as  the  Lapps  and  Bushmen.  The 
arms  are  generally  long  and  the  hands  and  feet  small  in 
comparison  with  those  of  the  Europeans.1 

Whatever  may  have  been  their  origin,  one  thing  is 
certain :  the  people  of  this  continent  have  been  so  long 
separated  from  the  rest  of  mankind  as  to  set  themselves 
off  in  a  body  by  themselves,  distinct  from  all  other  races 
in  language,  color  and  culture,  and  are  to  be  recognized, 
not  as  a  branch  of  the  Mongolian,  Polynesian  or  Cauca 
sian  family,  but  as  a  distinct  family  by  themselves,  for 
which  the  Anthropological  Society  of  Washington  has 
suggested  the  name  "Amerind,"  a  combination  of  the  first 
syllables  of  American  and  Indian.  "They  constitute," 
says  Brinton,  "as  true  and  distinct  a  sub-species  as  do  the 
African  or  the  White  Race." — Essays  of  an  Americanist, 
p.  17. 

For  -our  knowledge  of  the  Amerind  of  the  past,  we 
have  to  depend  upon  oral  and,  more  or  less,  uncertain 


"The  American  Race,"  pp.  36-40. 


62  CUMORAPI   REVISITED 

traditions  handed  down  from  father  to  son  through  num 
berless  generations  ;  the  picture-writing  of  the  Aztecs  and 
the  more  developed  system  of  the  Mayas,  their  southern 
neighbors ;  the  writings  of  the  Spanish  and  French  priests 
and  English  missionaries,  with  those  of  the  native  con 
verts,  conquistadors,  travelers  and  explorers ;  the  "actual 
condition,  institutions  and  beliefs"  of  the  tribes  at  the 
time  of  the  Discovery;  the  lingual  affinities  between  the 
tribes;  and  the  material  monuments  of  ruined  cities, 
mounds  and  fortifications  with  other  archaeological  re 
mains. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN   IN  AMERICA. 

It  has  long  been  a  question  with  anthropologists 
whether  to  consider  the  distinct  races  of  men  as  separate 
creations  or  as  types  of  one  species  descended  from  a 
common  source.  Those  who  believe  in  man's  specific 
diversity  have  advocated  their  side  of  the  question  with  a 
degree  of  zeal  and  a  display  of  learning  quite  remarkable, 
and  yet  the  argument  still  seems  to  be  on  the  side  of  those 
who  believe  with  Paul  that  God  ''hath  made  of  one  blood 
all  nations  of  men,  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the 
earth;  and  hath  determined  the  times  before  appointed, 
and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation"  (Acts  17:26).  On 
this  point  Dr.  Brinton  says:  "But  now,  after  weighing 
the  question  maturely,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the 
apostle  was  not  so  wide  of  the  mark  after  all — that,  in 
fact,  the  latest  and  best  authorities,  with  no  bias  in  his 
favor,  support  his  position  and  may  almost  be  said  to 
paraphrase  his  words.  For,  according  to  a  late  writer 
whose  work  is  still  a  standard  in  the  science  of  ethnology, 
the  severest  and  most  patient  investigations  show  that 
'not  only  do  acknowledged  facts  permit  the  assumption 
of  the  unity  of  the  human  species,  but  this  opinion  is 
attended  with  fewer  discrepancies,  and  has  greater  inner 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  63 

consistency,  than  the  opposite  one  of  specific  diversity.'  " 
— Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  14. 

Prominent  among  the  advocates  of  the  diversity  of 
the  human  species  was  Dr.  Samuel  George  Morton, 
who  wrote  in  its  defense  his  well-known  works,  "Crania 
Americana"  and  "Crania  Egyptiaca."  His  investigations 
were  confined,  however,  to  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  he  dying  May  15,  1851.  After  his  death  his 
disciples,  Dr.  J.  C.  Nott  and  Mr.  George  R.  Gliddon, 
defended  his  views  in  their  "Types  of  Mankind."  Louis 
Agassiz  was  also  of  this  opinion  and  divided  humanity- 
into  eight  distinct  types  which,  he  thought,  originated 
independently  of  each  other  and  in  special  adaptation  to 
the  climate  and  environment  of  those  regions  where  they 
dwelt.  These  types  are  the  Arctic,  Mongol,  European, 
American,  Negro,  Hottentot,  Malay  and  Australian. 

It  hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  this  theory,  which  at 
the  time  of  its  introduction  caused  no  little  stir  in  scien 
tific  and  religious  circles,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  ques 
tion  of  the  origin  of  the  American  race,  has  but  few 
supporters  to-day,  the  recent  studies  in  biology  and  an 
thropology  putting  it  in  no  very  favorable  light.1  "On 
the  one  hand.,"  says  Brinton,  "the  laws  of  the  evolution 
of  the  higher  vertebrates  offer  no  support  to  the  idea 
that  the  species  man  was  developed  on  the  American 
continent.  Its  living  and  fossil  fauna  are  alike  devoid 
of  high  apes,  of  tailless  monkeys,  or  those  with  thirty-two 
teeth ;  in  the  absence  of  which  links  we  must  accept  man 
as  an  immigrant,  not  a  native  in  the  New  World.  Nor 
can  we  place  his  advent  extremely  remote." — Myths  of 
the  New  World,  p.  48. 


1  The   theory   of   "monogenism,"   or   the   specific   unity   of   man,   is   now 
adopted    by    most    anthropologists, — "Myths    of    the    New    World,"    p.    14, 

Footnote. 


64  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Those  who  hold  to  the  theory  that  American  man 
came  from  the  Old  World  are  divided  among  themselves 
in  their  opinions  as  to  the  country  from  which  he  came. 
Some  have  suggested  China,  others  Polynesia,  others 
Phenicia,  others  Atlantis,  and  still  others  Palestine.  Vol 
umes  have  been  written  on  these  different  theories,  and 
numberless  analogies  in  custom,  habit,  institution  and 
belief  have  been  pointed  out  to  prove  them,  but,  notwith 
standing  all  this,  these  theories  have  passed  away  before 
the  advance  of  scientific  research.  Brinton  remarks :  "For 
all  those  old  dreams  of  the  advent  of  the  Ten  Lost  Tribes, 
of  Buddhist  priests,  of  Welsh  princes,  or  of  Phenician 
merchants  on  American  soil,  and  there  exerting  a  perma 
nent  influence,  have  been  consigned  to  the  dust-bin  by 
every  unbiased  student,  and  when  we  see  learned  men 
essaying  to  resuscitate  them,  we  regretfully  look  upon  it 
in  the  light  of  a  scientific  anacronism.  The  most  com 
petent  observers  are  agreed  that  American  art  bears  the 
indisputable  stamp  of  its  indigenous  growth.  Those  anal 
ogies  and  identities  which  have  been  brought  forward  to 
prove  its  Asiatic  or  European  or  Polynesian  origin, 
whether  in  myth,  folklore  or  technical  details,  belong 
wholly  and  only  to  the  uniform  development  of  human 
culture  under  similar  conditions.  This  is  their  true  an 
thropological  interpretation,  and  we  need  no  other." — 
Myths  of  the  New  World,  pp.  33,  34. 

The  data  which  we  have  at  hand  make  it  necessary 
for  us  to  reject  the  assumption  that  the  American  Indian 
is  a  descendant  of  some  one,  or  of  a  number,  of  the  his 
toric  nations.  His  physical  peculiarities,  his  languages 
and  the  characteristic  features  of  his  culture  all  combine 
to  refute  such  a  hypothesis.  On  the  contrary,  these  evi 
dences  go  to  show  that  he  must  have  come  to  America  in 
the  dim,  distant  ages  of  the  past,  long  before  the  erection 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  65 

of  the  pyramids  of  ancient  Egypt  and  the  palaces  and 
temples  of  ancient  .Babylon,  and  when  he  and  his  fellows 
were  still  chippers  of  stone,  and  developed  here  upon  this 
continent  in  conformity  with  its  climate  and  environments 
and  the  laws  of  his  own  nature.  This  theory  is  rapidly 
being  confirmed  by  the  data  which  are  being  brought  to 
light  by  scientific  investigation.1 

The  "area  of  characterization,"  or  the  locality  where 
American  man  received  the  peculiar  physical  stamp 
characteristic  of  his  race,  Brinton  would  locate  in  North 
America,  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  between  the 
receding  wall  of  the  glacial  ice-sheet  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  His  reasons  for  this  belief  are  the  proximity  of 
this  region  to  the  land  areas  of  the  Old  World;  the 
inadaptation  of  the  race  to  the  tropical  climate ;  their  sus 
ceptibility  to  hepatic  disorders  and  diseases  of  the  torrid 
zone;  the  robust  physique  of  the  tribes  of  the  temperate 
regions,  as  compared  with  those  of  the  tropics ;  and  the 
fact  that  in  North  America  "we  find  the  oldest  signs  of 
man's  residence  on  the  continent."  * 

THE  ANTIQUITY  OF   MAN   IN   AMERICA. 

On  the  antiquity  of  man  the  opinions  of  anthropolo 
gists  vary  widely.  Professor  Winchell  states  that  man's 
antiquity  "may  reach  a  hundred  thousand  years." '  And 
Dr.  Brinton  thinks  that  man  may  have  been  in  the  Dela 
ware  Valley  even  longer  ago  than  that.4  On  the  other 
hand,  Dawson  declares  that  the  "four  or  five  thousand 
years  for  the  postdiluvian  period,  and  two  thousand,  or 
a  little  more,  for  the  antediluvian  period,  will  exhaust  all 

1  "North  Americans  of  Yesterday,"  p.   14, 

8  "The   American    Race,"    p.    35. 

3  "Preadamites,"    p.    473. 

*  "Essays  of  an  Americanist,"   p.   53. 


66  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

the  time  that  geology  can  allow  for  the  possible  existence 
of  man."  * 

With  reference  to  the  glacial  period,  man's  origin  is 
preglacial,  glacial  or  postglacial.  To  arrive,  therefore, 
at  any  conclusion  whatever  as  to  his  antiquity,  it  is  first 
necessary  to  locate,  approximately,  ithis  period.  The 
Glacial  Age  has  been  put  back  in  the  history  of  the  world 
1,280,000,000  years.  Lyell's  first  estimate  brought  it  to  a 
close  800,000,000  years  ago,  but  this  he  subsequently  low 
ered  to  200,000,000  years.2  But,  since  Lyell's  day,  esti 
mates  as  to  the  length  of  the  geological  periods  have  been 
greatly  cut  down,  and  Professor  Wright  now  tells  us  that 
geological  time  is  not  a  hundredth  part  as  long  as  it  was 
once  supposed  to  be.  Of  more  recent  estimates  on  the 
close  of  this  age,  Brinton  says:  "As  you  are  aware,  the 
attempt  has  several  times  been  made  to  fix  the  final  retro 
cession  of  the  glaciers  of  North  America.  The  estimates 
have  varied  from  about  12,000  years  ago  up  to  50,000, 
with  a  majority  in  favor  of  about  35,000  years." — Essays 
of  an  Americanist,  p.  41. 

The  late  writer  on  American  anthropology,  F.  S.  Del- 
lenbaugh,  following  Gilbert,  would,  however,  reduce  even 
the  lowest  of  these  estimates.  He  says :  "The  period  of 
time  that  has  elapsed  since  the  so-called  disappearance 
of  the  ice  was  formerly  believed  to  be  very  great,  but 
latterly  views  on  this  point  have  been  much  modified. 
Gilbert  has  declared,  after  a  study  of  the  Niagara  gorge, 
that  the  time  since  the  ice  left  that  region  is  not  more 
than  seven  thousand  years,  perhaps  less.  More  recent 
investigations  have  tended  to  confirm  his  suggestion  of 


1  "Present-day  Tracts,  No.  42,"  p.  22. 

z  "Science  of  the  Day  and  Genesis,"  p.  105.  I  give  these  figures 
wholly  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  Nisbet.  I  have  not  been  able  to  trace  them 
further. 


CVMORAH   REVISITED  67 

fewer  years." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  441. 

This  seems  to  be  in  agreement  with  the  results  of  the 
investigations  of  other  geologists  in  other  localities.  Pro 
fessor  Andrews  estimated,  after  making  observations  on 
the  beaches  of  Lake  Michigan,  that  a  period  of  time 
somewhere  between  5,500  and  7,500  years  has  elapsed 
since  the  deposits  of  the  Glacial  Age  were  made.1  And 
Professor  Winchell,  by  comparing  the  present  rate  of 
wear  with  the  chasm  worn  at  St.  Anthony's  Falls, 
obtained,  as  the  mean  result  of  the  different  estimates, 
8,859  years  as  the  length  of  time  between  our  own  and 
the  retrocession  of  the  glaciers  of  that  locality.2  On  the 
recent  close  of  the  glacial  period,  Prof.  G.  F.  Wright 
says:  'The  glacial  period  did  not  close  more  than  ten 
thousand  years  ago.  This  shortening  of  our  conception 
of  the  ice  age  renders  glacial  man  a  comparatively  mod 
ern  creature.  The  last  stage  of  the  excessive  unstability 
of  the  earth  was  not  so  very  long  ago  and  continued  down 
to  near  the  introduction  of  man."  ! 

Confining  our  attention  to  the  American  continent, 
we  find  no  well-authenticated  evidence  that  man  came 
before  the  glacial  period.  As  for  the  indications  of  his 
existence  during  that  period,  they  are  vague  and  uncer 
tain,  in  consequence  of  which  archaeologists  differ,  some 
holding  that  he  came  before  the  ice  receded,  and  others 
holding  that  he  came  after.  Among  those  of  the  former 
class  may  be  mentioned  the  names  of  Wilson,  Wright, 
Abbott  and  Putnam;  and  of  the  latter,  Dawson,  Holmes, 
Fowke,  McGee,  Thomas  and  Russell. 

Professor  Thomas  writes :  "The  writer,  as  those  who 
peruse  this  work  will  observe,  has  not  entered  into  a  dis- 


1  "Story  of  the  Earth  and  Man,"   p.   295. 

2  "Science   of  the   Day  and   Genesis,"   p.    109. 

3  "The    Other    Side    of    Evolution,"    p.    95. 


68  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

cussion  of  the  question  of  the  so-called  paleolithic  age,  or 
glacial  man  in  America,  for  the  reason  that  he  does  net 
believe  the  evidence  on  which  the  theory  is  based  as  yet 
sufficient  to  justify  its  acceptance.  The  results  of  the 
more  recent  investigations  in  America,  or  at  least  North 
America,  all  tend  in  the  other  direction.  One  by  one  the 
strongholds  of  the  advocates  are  being  overturned,  and 
the  evidence  on  which  the  theory  is  based  discounted." — 
Introduction  to  the  Study  of  North  American  Archae 
ology,  p.  5. 

And  Prof.  Israel  Cook  Russell,  professor  of  geology 
in  the  University  of  Michigan,  in  his  late  work,  "North 
America,"  p.  362,  says:  "Turning  to  the  geological 
records,  we  find  no  authentic  and  well-attested  evidence 
of  the  presence  of  man  in  America  either  previous  to  or 
during  the  glacial  period.  ...  In  brief,  all  the  geological 
evidence  thus  far  gathered  bearing  on  the  antiquity  of 
man  in  America  points  to  the  conclusion  that  he  came 
after  the  glacial  epoch.  Judgment  in  this  respect,  how 
ever,  should  be  held  in  abeyance,  as  the  search  for  evi 
dence  is  as  yet  incomplete." 

One  by  one  the  evidences  of  the  extreme  antiquity  of 
American  man  have  been  overturned.  The  fossil  Guada- 
loupe  man,  which  Nott  and  Gliddon  declared  to  be  of  a 
great  age,  was  shown  by  Professor  Dana  to  be  the  body 
of  a  Carib  Indian  two  or  three  centuries  old.  Agassiz 
gave  the  Florida  bone  an  antiquity  of  fourteen  thousand 
years ;  but  its  finder,  Count  Portales,  declared  that  it  was 
not  found  imbedded  in  coral  rock,  as  was  supposed,  but 
in  fresh-water  sandstone  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Monroe, 
Florida,  associated  with  the  shells  of  fresh-water  species 
now  living.  Of  the  Natchez  bone,  which  was  thought  to 
date  back  to  preglacial  times,  Winchell  says :  "From  be 
ing  the  relic  of  a  preglacial  man  it  suddenly  became  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  69 

• 

bone  of  a  red  Indian,  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
old." — Preadamiies,  p.  425.  And  Dr.  Dowler  estimated 
that  the  New  Orleans  skeleton,  found  buried  under  six 
teen  feet  of  river  mud  and  four  successive  cypress  for 
ests,  was  57,000  years  old.  This  estimate  was  approved 
by  Charles  Lyell.  On  the  contrary,  the  engineers,  Hum 
phreys  and  Abbott,  claim  that  the  ground  upon  which 
New  Orleans  now  stands,  to  the  depth  of  forty  feet,  has 
been  deposited  within  4,400  years;  while  Dr.  Foster 
claims  that  the  so-called  cypress  forests  are  nothing  more 
than  driftwood  carried  down  the  Mississippi  and  imbed 
ded  in  the  sediment.1 

But,  perhaps,  the  piece  of  evidence  that  has  been  con 
sidered  the  most  important,  as  proving  the  existence  of 
Tertiary  man  in  America,  is  the  renowned  Calaveras  skull 
said  to  have  been  found  in  a  mine-shaft  at  Altaville,  Cal 
ifornia,  in  1866.  Winchell  declares  that  this  is  the  "best 
authenticated  instance  of  Pliocene  man  which  has  been 
brought  to  light,"  and  it  has  been  accepted  as  such  by  a 
number  of  other  scientists,  although  there  never  has  been 
a  time  when  some  have  not  held  it  in  doubt.  According 
to  Professor  Whitney,  who  was  one  of  the  first  geologists 
to  examine  this  skull,  it  was  found  in  Mattison  &  Co.'s 
mine,  130  feet  under  the  ground,  being  taken  from  a  bed 
of  gravel  by  Mr.  Mattison  himself,  who  at  first  thought  it 
was  only  a  piece  of  the  root  of  a  tree.  When  delivered 
to  Whitney,  the  base  of  the  skull  was  incrusted  "in  a 
conglomerate  mass  of  ferruginous  earth,  water-worn 
pebbles  of  much  altered  volcanic  rock,  calcareous  tufa, 
and  fragments  of  bones,"  which  gave  it  the  appearance 
of  a  great  antiquity.  Whitney  wrote  a  defense  of  its 
genuineness  and  the  find  was  heralded  throughout  both 


"Science  and   Genesis,"   pp.   84,  85. 


70  CUMORAPI   REVISITED 

» 

Europe  and  America  as  positive  proof  of  the  existence  of 
preglacial  man  upon  this  continent.  But  many  scientists 
have  never  been  convinced  of  its  high  antiquity.  There 
is  a  "practical  identity  of  the  skull  with  modern  crania" 
which  "speaks  very  eloquently  against  extreme  antiquity," 
it  being  very  closely  analogous  to  the  skulls  of  the  Digger 
Indians  who  inhabited  that  region  when  the  skull  was 
found.  Its  claim  to  a  high  antiquity  is  also  weakened  by 
the  report  current  at  the  time  of  its  finding  that  it  was 
an  Indian  skull  which  was  coated  with  gravel,  buried  at 
the  bottom  of  the  mine,  and  afterwards  taken  out  to  hoax 
a  certain  doctor  of  the  place.  Mr.  W.  H.  Holmes,  who 
does  not  believe  in  its  high  antiquity,  has  reviewed  the 
evidences  in  the  case  in  a  convincing  manner  in  Bulletin 
1242  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  entitled  "Review  of 
the  Evidence  Relating  to  Auriferous  Gravel  Man  in  Cali 
fornia." 

The  rinding  of  human  bones  and  implements  with 
the  bones  of  the  mastodon  has  been  taken  by  some  as 
strong  evidence  of  the  great  age  of  the  species  man  in 
America.  This  assumption,  however,  will  not  stand  in 
the  light  of  geological  and  archaeological  research,  for  it 
is  now  a  well-known  fact  that  mastodon  bones  have  been 
taken  from  peat  beds,  which,  judging  by  the  present  rate 
of  deposit,  are  not  more  than  five  hundred  years  old. 
This  brings  the  mastodon  down  to  a  comparatively  recent 
date.  "Mastodon  bones,"  says  Professor  Henshaw,  "have 
been  exhumed  from  peat  beds  in  this  country  at  a  depth 
which,  so  far  as  is  proved  by  the  rate  of  deposition, 
implies  that  the  animal  may  have  been  alive  within  five 
hundred  years." — Second  Report  Bu.  Amer.  Ethno./p. 

153- 

On  the  antiquity  of  American  man,  the  chronological 
systems  of  the  Mexicans,  Mayas  and  Peruvians  throw  no 


CVMORAH  REVISITED  ji 

light,  as  they  carry  us  back  but  comparatively  few  cen 
turies  before  the  Discovery.  The  annals  of  the  Mayas 
reach  back  nearly  to  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era, 
where  they  fade  into  the  mythical,  while  those  of  the 
Nahuas,  Bancroft  declares,  "reach  back  chronologically, 
although  not  uninterruptedly,  to  the  sixth  century  of  our 
era."  And,  as  for  Peru,  great  uncertainty  shrouds  its 
history  after  a  few  centuries  back  of  the  invasion  of  the 
Spaniards,  and  this  grows  denser  and  deeper  as  we  go 
further  back. 

Because  of  the  uncertainties  that  have  crowded  into 
the  American  traditions,  the  events  they  describe  are 
accepted  as  historical  only  so  far  as  they  are  borne  out 
by  other  evidences.  The  tradition  that  the  Nahuas  came 
from  a  more  northern  latitude,  therefore,  is  established 
by  the  linguistic  evidences  which  we  have  of  such  a 
migration.  And  it  may  be  received  as  historically  true 
that  Peru  has  had  two,  or  more,  epochs  in  her  history. 
While  the  former  existence  of  a  powerful  Maya  em 
pire  in  the  region  of  the  Usumacinta  rests  upon  some 
thing  more  than  vague  tradition,  it  has  to  prove  it  the 
crumbling  palaces  and  temples  of  Palenque,  Copan  and 
Quirigua. 

One  of  the  most  reasonable  grounds  for  demanding 
a  high  antiquity  for  the  American  race  is  found  in  its 
languages.  Here  we  find  a  diversity  greater  than  is  to  be 
found  among  any  other  race  on  the  globe.  In  fact,  the 
American  languages,  450  in  number,  as  given  by  Reclus, 
exceed  in  number  those  in  use  in  all  the  rest  of  the  earth. 
It  is  said  that  in  Mexico  alone  there  are  nineteen  linguistic 
stocks,  divided  into  108  distinct  languages,  and  upwards 
of  sixty  dialects.  The  great  Algonkin  family,  which  orig 
inally  stretched  from  the  Rockies  to  the  Atlantic,  con 
tains,  according  to  Brinton,  twenty-six  distinct  languages. 


72  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

And  this  diversity  extends  throughout  the  two  Americas 
until  it  is  safe  to  conjecture  that  the  number  of  dialects 
in  both  continents  exceeds  two  thousand. 

American  languages  have  changed  slowly.  While 
tribes  have  dropped  some  words  and  invented  others, 
often  on  account  of  superstitious  caprice,  the  radicals 
and  structure  of  the  different  languages  have  remained 
unchanged  for  untold  ages,  and,  because  of  this,  "they 
form  the  safest  guide  now  available  in  the  classification 
of  the  various  branches  of  the  Amerind  race." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  25. 

Some  philologists,  despairing  of  ever  tracing  the 
American  languages  back  to  a  common  point  of  diverg 
ence,  are  of  the  opinion  that  they  sprang  from  several 
linguistic  centers.  Powell,  whose  ability  as  an  American 
philologist  none  will  question,  after  an  exhaustive  study 
of  the  tongues  of  North  America,  writes:  "The  North 
American  Indian  tribes,  instead  of  speaking  related  dia 
lects,  originating  in  a  single  parent  language,  in  reality 
speak  many  languages,  belonging  to  distinct  families, 
which  have  no  apparent  unity  of  origin."  It  was  his 
belief  that  there  was  no  "single  primitive  speech  common 
to  mankind,"  but  that  the  human  race  "spread  through 
out  the  habitable  earth  anterior  to  the  development  of 
organized  languages,"  and  that  the  different  tongues  of 
men  sprang  from  distinct  centers  after  their  dispersion.1 

But  to  other  philologists  this  great  linguistic  diversity 
is  only  a  forceful  argument  for  the  high  antiquity  of 
man  upon  this  continent.  "To  me,"  says  Brinton,  "the 
exceeding  diversity  of  languages  in  America  and  the 
many  dialects  into  which  these  have  split,  are  cogent 
proofs  of  the  vast  antiquity  of  the  race,  an  antiquity 

1  "First  Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  79. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  73 

stretching  back  tens  of  thousands  of  years.  Nothing 
less  can  explain  these  multitudinous  forms  of  speech." — 
Essays  of  an  Americanist,  p.  35. 

The  conclusion  upon  which  we  all  can  agree  is  that 
the  marvelous  diversity  of  his  languages  demands  for 
American  man  the  highest  antiquity  the  other  evidences 
will  allow,  which  will  at  least  carry  him  back  to  the 
close  of  the  glacial  epoch. 

HOW    MAN    REACHED   AMERICA. 

This  brings  us  to  another  question :  How  did  man 
reach  America  ?  Three  ways  have  been  proposed  for  the 
peopling  of  this  continent  by  those  who  hold  to  the  exotic 
origin  of  the  American  race:  by  vessel,  either  intention 
ally  or  accidentally ;  by  way  of  Behring  Strait,  and  over 
lands  now  submerged  beneath  the  ocean. 

Those  who  hold  that  America  was  peopled  by  immi 
grants  from  the  Old  World  who  crossed  the  sea  in  ships, 
and  with  the  intention  of  inhabiting  this  continent,  were 
numerous  a  century  ago.  They  differed  among  them 
selves  as  to  the  country  from  which  the  populators  came, 
some  claiming  Babel,  others  Polynesia,  others  Phoenicia, 
others  Scandinavia  and  some  Atlantis  as  the  original 
home  of  these  immigrants.  Probably  the  most  unreason 
able  of  all  these  theories,  and  yet  the  one  that  has  out 
lived  all  the  others,  is  that  they  were  Jaredites  from  Babel 
and  Jews  from  Jerusalem.  Those  who  think  that  this 
continent  was  peopled  accidentally,  by  crews  of  vessels 
wrecked  upon  our  shores,  are  with  us  to-day.  Professor 
Shaler  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  first  men  were  either 
Japanese  or  Chinese  who  were  floated  on  "chance  rafts" 
by  the  ocean  and  atmospheric  currents  to  our  Pacific 
shore.  He  also  states  that  it  is  "barely  possible"  that 
ships  from  the  Mediterranean  may  have  been  carried  by 


74  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

wind  and  wave  to  the  coast  of  South  America,  although, 
he  says,  "the  distance  is,  however,  so  great,  °nd  the  time 
of  the  journey  so  long,  that  it  is  improbable  that  a  ship 
scantily  provisioned,  as  were  the  vessels  of  old,  should 
have  borne  living  voyagers  across  this  wide  field  of 
waters." — Nature  and  Man  in  America,  p.  178.  But, 
while  Mongolian  vessels  have  actually  reached  our  Pacific 
coast  at  the  rate  of  two  per  year,  it  is  very  unlikely  that 
our  continent  was  peopled  in  that  chance  way,  for  the 
number  of  vessels  afloat  two  thousand  years  ago  was 
nothing  as  compared  to  the  number  afloat  to-day.  The 
majority  of  students  are  of  the  opinion  that  some  other 
way  will  have  to  be  found  to  account  for  the  peopling  of 
this  continent. 

The  most  generally  accepted  theory  is  that  the  first 
inhabitants  of  America  came  from  northeastern  Asia 
across  Behring  Strait.  The  proximity  of  the  continents 
of  Asia  and  America  at  the  north  has  made  such  a  theory 
appear  most  plausible.  It  is  also  known  that  there  has 
been,  for  a  number  of  centuries,  intercommunication  be 
tween  the  tribes  of  Alaska  and  Siberia,  for  the  Eskimo 
have  carried  on  a  regular  traffic  with  the  Russian  traders, 
while  the  Tchutski  have  made  hostile  inroads  upon  the 
tribes  on  this  side  of  the  strait.  But,  within  historic 
times  at  least,  immigration  has  been  into  Asia  from 
America,  instead  of  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  Behr 
ing  found  the  Aleutians  nearest  Kamschatka  uninhabited, 
while  those  nearest  the  American  side  were  inhabited  by 
tribes  with  unmistakable  American  affinities.  Dr.  Brinton 
also  offers  two  serious  objections  to  this  route:  "We 
know  that  Siberia  was  not  peopled  till  late  in  the  Neo 
lithic  times" — the  first  Americans  being  Paleolithic  men, 
the  inference  is,  then,  that  the  continent  was  inhabited 
before  Siberia — "and,  what  is  more,  that  the  vicinity  of 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  75 

the  strait  and  the  whole  coast  of  Alaska  were,  till  a  very 
modern  geologic  period,  covered  by  enormous  glaciers 
which  would  have  prevented  any  communication  between 
the  two  continents." — The  American  Race,  p.  21.  But, 
be  this  as  it  may,  one  thing  is  very  certain :  if  the  western 
continent  was  peopled  from  Asia,  via  Behring  Strait,  it 
was  not  by  those  highly  cultivated  nations  from  the 
southern  parts.  To  suppose  that  Egyptians,  Israelites  or 
Hindoos  would  leave  a  warm  climate  and  journey  hun 
dreds  of  miles  through  a  zone  of  ice,  which  is  devoid  of 
the  fruits  and  cereals  upon  which  they  depended  in  a 
great  measure  for  sustenance,  carrying  with  them  their 
arts,  customs,  habits,  religion  and  language,  in  order  to 
reach  a  land  of  which  they  could  have  heard  only  by  the 
most  uncertain  rumors,  if  at  all,  is  too  absurd  to  think 
about.  If,  then,  America  was  peopled  from  the  north 
west,  it  must  have  been  by  slow  stages  and  successive 
waves  of  immigration  and  by  tribes  accustomed  to  the 
rigorous  Arctic  climate. 

But,  admitting  this  as  a  possible  route  for  immigrants 
accustomed  to  the  severity  and  food  supply  of  a  cold 
climate,  and  even  admitting  the  possibility  of  a  few  im 
migrants  reaching  our  shores  through  the  agency  of 
wind  and  wave,  there  is  a  better  theory  which  accounts 
for  the  peopling  of  America  upon  the  hypothesis  that 
there  formerly  existed  a  land-bridge,  or  land-bridges,  by 
which  men  passed  from  continent  to  continent.  That 
such  land  surfaces  once  existed,  linking  the  continents 
together,  is  an  established  fact  Such  sunken  lands  are 
revealed  by  soundings,  and  there  seems  to  be  evidence  of 
their  former  existence  in  the  fauna  and  flora  of  the  New 
World.  Brinton  claims  that,  from  the  period  of  the 
Eocene  down  to  the  close  of  the  Pliocene,  America 
and  Europe  were  connected  on  the  north  by  such  sur- 


76  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

faces,  of  which  Greenland,  Iceland,  Shetland  and  the 
Orkneys  were  the  highest  elevations.  Prof.  James  Geikie 
claims  that  in  the  glacial  and  early  postglacial  ages  the 
north  Atlantic  bed  was  raised  three  thousand  feet  above 
its  present  level,  constituting  a  continuous  land  passage 
from  Europe  to  America.  And  Mr.  James  Croll  declares 
that  the  glacial  striae,  on  the  rocks  of  Shetland,  Iceland, 
the  Faroe  Islands  and  south  Greenland,  are  in  such  direc 
tions  and  of  such  a  character  as  to  show  clearly  that  they 
have  been  produced  by  land  ice,  and  that  a  theory  of  land 
connection  between  Europe  and  America  "can  alone  ex 
plain  all  the  facts." * 

There  also  seems  to  be  clearly  established  evidence  in 
the  fauna  and  Mora  that  the  continents  of  Europe  and 
North  America  were  at  one  time  connected.  Certain 
species  of  land  snails  are  found  in  both  Labrador  and 
Europe.  The  horse,  which  is  commonly  supposed  to  be 
long  to  the  Old  World,  is  now  known  to  have  been  a 
native  of  America  in  the  earlier  geologic  epochs.  The 
cave  bear  of  Europe  was  identical  with  our  Rocky  Moun 
tain  grizzly.  Remains  of  the  mammoth  are  found  in  both 
continents.  The  musk-ox,  once  common  in  Europe,  still 
lives  in  Arctic  America.  Rutimeyer  declares  that  the 
ancient  bison  (Bos  priscus)  of  Europe  was  the  same  as 
the  American  buffalo.  The  fossil  remains  of  the  camel, 
it  is  said,  have  been  found  in  South  America  and  Kansas. 
The  glutton  of  northern  Europe  and  the  wolverine  of  the 
United  States  are  the  same.  Remains  of  the  European 
cave  lion  and  cave  wolf  are  met  with  in  America.  And 
the  Cervus  Americanus,  discovered  in  Kentucky,  was  as 
large  as  and  resembled  the  Irish  elk.2 

The  flora  of  northern  Greenland  is  American;  that  of 

1  "The  American   Race,"   pp.   29-32. 
*  "Atlantis,"  p.  55. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  77 

southern  Greenland  is  European.  The  flora  of  the  Mio 
cene  in  Europe  still  lives  in  the  forests  of  Virginia,  the 
Carolinas  and  Florida  in  such  familiar  trees  as  the  mag 
nolia,  tulip-tree,  maple,  evergreen  oak,  plane-tree,  robinas 
and  sequoias.  And  of  three  thousand  plants,  found  in 
the  Miocene  fossil  beds  of  Switzerland,  the  majority  are 
found  in  America.1  This  identity  of  fauna  and  flora  can 
best  be  explained  by  the  theory  of  land  surfaces  connect 
ing  the  continents,  and,  if  these  formed  a  bridge  for 
plants  and  animals  to  pass  over,  as  they  continued  into 
postglacial  time,2  they  may  also  have  formed  a  bridge 
over  which  man  passed  from  the  Old  World  into  the 
New. 

It  is  possible  that  the  first  immigrants  to  America 
reached  our  shores  at  different  times  and  in  all  three  of 
the  ways  suggested,  but  it  seems  most  probable  that  the 
bulk  of  the  ancient  population  came  over  land  surfaces 
now  submerged  and  when  in  a  very  low  state  of  culture, 
and  that  the  subsidence  of  these  lands,  isolating  the 
people  from  the  Old  World,  was  one  of  the  means  of 
establishing  here  a  distinct  type  of  men — the  American 
race.  These,  isolated  from  the  men  of  the  other  con 
tinent,  and  with  numbers  increased  only  occasionally  by 
small  and  insignificant  influxes  of  immigration,  which 
were  not  sufficient  to  tinge  the  stock,  developed  here  on 
American  soil,  and  under  the  influence  of  American 
climate  and  environment,  a  culture  peculiarly  American, 
of  which  the  Mayas,  Mexicans  and  Peruvians,  at  the 
time  of  the  Discovery,  exhibited  the  highest  phase,  and 
which  bore  but  few  special  resemblances  to  that  of  Old 
World  nations  and  only  such  as  can  be  accounted  for 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  two  peoples,  in  similar  condi- 

1  "Atlantis,"  p.  56. 

e  "Earth  and  Man,"  pp.   388,  289, 


;8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

tions  and  grades  of  development,  will  do  the  same  thing 
alike.  This  is  the  theory  accepted  by  a  considerable 
number  of  American  ethnologists,  and  is  confirmed  by 
the  great  mass  of  data  which  we  have  at  hand. 

THE    HISTORIC    TRIBES    AND    NATIONS    OF    AMERICA. 

The  American  race  is  divided  into  180  separate  lin 
guistic  stocks,  of  which  eighty  are  found  in  North  and 
one  hundred  in  South  America.  These  stocks,  in  turn, 
are  subdivided  into  tribes  which  speak  dialects  differing, 
in  some  instances,  from  one  another  as  much  as  the 
German  differs  from  the  English,  yet  with  a  thread  of 
homogeneity  running  through  them  all  that  proves  their 
primitive  unity. 

As  it  would  be  impossible  and  unnecessary  for  me  to 
describe  and  locate  all  the  tribes  of  this  continent,  which 
would  require  a  book  of  several  hundred  pages,  I  shall 
content  myself  with  speaking  only  of  those  who  are  most 
important,  or  who  are  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
argument  of  this  book. 

In  the  far  north  we  have  the  Eskimo,  or  Innuit,  who 
are  an  arctic  and  a  maritime  people  inhabiting  the  coasts 
of  the  Arctic  Ocean,  from  Alaska  eastward  to  Labra 
dor,  Greenland  and  the  islands  of  the  Northern  Sea. 
Some  ethnologists  claim  that  they  do  not  belong  to  the 
American  race  at  aU,  but  are  of  Asiatic  origin,  while 
others  believe  that  they  are  a  distinct  race  by  themselves. 

South  of  the  Eskimo  and  stretching  almost  from 
Hudson  Bay  on  the  east  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west 
and  from  the  territory  of  the  Eskimo  on  the  north  to 
British  Columbia  on  the  south,  are  the  tribes  of  the 
Tinne  or  Athapascan  stock.  A  branch  of  this  stock,  of 
which  the  Apaches  and  the  Navajos  are  tribes,  is  found 
in  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  wedged  in  between  the  Uto- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


79 


Aztecan  tribes  of  Utah  and  adjacent  territory  and  those 
of  Mexico. 

Along  our  Pacific  Coast,  from  Alaska  southward  into 


LINGUISTIC  STOCKS 
NORTH  AMERICA 


FIGURE  3. 


Lower  California,  are  a  number  of  small,  but  independ 
ent,  stocks  of  which  the  most  important  are  the  Kolu- 
schan,  Chimmesyan,  Skittagetan,  Salishan,  Wakashan, 
Chinookan,  Sahaptian,  Mariposan,  Yuman,  Piman  and 


8o  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Serian.  Brinton  tells  us  that  of  the  fifty-nine  stocks  in 
North  America  north  of  Mexico  "no  less  than  forty  .  .  . 
were  confined  to  the  narrow  strip  of  land  between  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Pacific  Ocean." — American 
Race,  p.  57. 

The  Algonkins,  originally,  extended  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  from  Hudson  Bay 
to  the  Carolinas.  These  Indians  were  the  skillful  hunt 
ers,  bold  warriors  and  typical  Americans  of  whom  Pon- 
tiac,  Tecumceh  and  Black  Hawk  were  notable  examples. 
Among  their  tribes  are  the  Mohicans,  Lenapes,  Shaw- 
nees,  Miamis,  Chippeways,  Ottawas,  Pottawatamies,  Sacs 
and  Foxes,  Kickapoos,  Menominees,  Crees,  Cheyennes, 
Arapahoes  and  Black  feet. 

The  Iroquoians  occupied  the  valley  of  the  St.  Law 
rence  and  the  State  of  New  York.  The  Cherokees  also 
belong  to  this  stock,  and  when  the  whites  came  were 
dwelling  in  the  mountainous  country  of  eastern  Tennes 
see  and  Kentucky,  northern  Alabama  and  western  Vir 
ginia  and  North  Carolina.  Another  branch,  the  Tusca- 
roras,  dwelt  on  the  head-waters  of  the  Roanoke  River, 
and  still  other  branches  on  the  Susquehanna,  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  on  both  the  north  and  south  shores  of  Lakes 
Ontario  and  Erie. 

Lying  south  of  the  Algonkins  and  Iroquoians  were 
the  tribes  of  the  Chata-Muskoki  family  in  the  present 
States  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama  ?.nd  Georgia. 
To  this  stock  belong  the  Creeks,  Chickasaws,  Choctaws 
and  Seminoles. 

The  watershed  of  the  Mississippi  was  largely  in  pos 
session  of  the  Dakotas  or  Sioux,  those  intrepid  plainsmen 
who  have  ever  viewed  the  encroachments  of  the  whites 
with  a  jealous  eye  and  who  have  more  than  once  on  the 
field  of  battle  disputed  their  right  to  advance  westward. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  8l 

Small  bands  of  Sioux  have  also  been  found  in  Virginia 
and  near  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  Caddoes  and  Kiowas  are  two  smaller  stocks.  The 
tribes  of  the  former  were  scattered  irregularly  from  the 
Middle  Missouri  River  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  while  the 
latter  lived  in  the  upper  basin  of  the  Canadian  branch  of 
the  Arkansas  River. 

The  great  Uto-Aztecan  family  next  claims  our  atten 
tion.  Tribes  speaking  dialects  of  this  language  have  been 
found  as  far  north  as  the  Columbia  River  and  as  far 
south  as  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  This  family  is  divided 
into  three  branches :  the  Shoshonean,  or  northern ;  the 
Sonoran,  or  middle,  and  the  Nahuan,  or  southern.  With 
in  this  family  are  found  the  widest  degrees  of  culture, 
the  Diggers,  the  lowest  Indians  in  North  America,  and 
the  Aztecs,  one  of  the  most  accomplished  tribes,  belong 
ing  to  it.  Among  the  tribes  connected  with  this  stock 
whose  names  will  be  mentioned  on  the  pages  of  this 
work  are  the  Toltecs,  Aztecs,  Chichimecs,  Tezcucans  and 
Tlascalans. 

Tribes  of  the  great  Mayan  family  inhabited  the 
greater  portion  of  Central  America.  Of  these  are  the 
Mayas  of  Yucatan,  the  Tzendals  of  Chiapas,  the  Cak- 
chiquels  and  Quiches  of  Guatemala  and  the  Lancandons 
on  the  Rio  Lancandon.  An  outlying  colony,  the  Huas- 
tecs,  are  also  found  in  Mexico,  on  the  Rio  Panuco,  north 
of  Vera  Cruz.  The  Mayas  were  the  most  enterprising 
of  all  the  peoples  of  antiquity  and  built  the  forest-grown 
cities  of  Central  America  and  Yucatan. 

Lying  between  the  Uto-Aztecan  and  Mayan  tribes,  or 
occupying  territory  among  them,  are  such  stocks  as  the 
Otomies,  Tarascos,  Totonacs,  Zapotecs,  Miztecs,  Zoques, 
Mixes  and  Chontals.  These  tribes,  or  some  of  them,  are 
sometimes  classed  with  one  or  the  other  of  the  great 


82  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

peoples  just  mentioned,  the  Nahuas  and  Mayas,  but 
Brinton  gives  them  independent  positions. 

Passing  over  the  Isthmian  tribes,  who  are  of  little 
importance  to  us  in  this  consideration,  we  enter  the  pres 
ent  territory  of  the  United  States  of  Colombia.  Here 
originally  dwelt  the  Chibchas,  or  Muyscas,  a  race  of  high 
culture,  whose  capital  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Bogota.  The 
Chibchas  were  skillful  in  the  working  of  metals. 

The  Carib  stock  was  extensively  distributed  in  the 
southern  continent,  inhabiting,  on  the  mainland,  the  ter 
ritory  between  the  Essequibo  River  and  the  Gulf  of 
Maracaibo.  At  the  Discovery  dialects  of  this  stock  were 
also  found  on  the  Lesser  Antilles  and  the  Carriby  Islands. 

South  of  the  Caribs  lay  the  tribes  of  the  Orinoco  and 
its  affluents.  Father  Gilii,  over  a  century  ago,  grouped 
them  into  nine  stocks,  the  Carib,  Saliva,  Maipure,  Oto- 
maca,  Guama,  Guayba,  Jaruri,  Guarauna  and  Aruaca, 
but  Alexander  Humboldt,  after  naming  and  locating-  186 
of  these  tribes,  renounced  as  hopeless  any  attempt  to 
classify  them  linguistically. 

The  tribes  on  the  upper  Amazon  and  its  tributaries 
Hervas  classifies  into  sixteen  stocks.  This  classification 
Brinton,  however,  rejects,  and  says:  "No  portion  of  the 
linguistic  field  of  South  America  offers  greater  confusion 
than  that  of  the 'western  Amazonian  region." — American 
Race,  p.  278. 

Of  all  the  native  languages  of  South  America,  the 
Arawack  is  the. most  widely  disseminated.  Tribes  of  this 
stock  are  scattered  from  the  head-waters  of  the  river 
Paraguay  northward  to  the  Goajiros  Peninsula,  the  most 
northerly  point  on  the  southern  continent.  Beth  the 
Greater  and  Lesser  Antilles,  with  the  Bahamas,  were 
originally  inhabited  by  tribes  of  this  stock. 

The  Tupis  are  found  in  Brazil  from  the  Amazon  on 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  83 

the  north  to  Uruguay  on  the   south  and   from   Bolivia 
on  the  west  to  the  Atlantic  on  the  cast.     Brinton  men- 


FIGURE 


tions  fcrty-one  tribes  who  belong  to  this  stock. 

Adjacent  to  the  Tupis  on  the  east  are  the  Tapuyas, 


84  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

who  are  located  between  south  latitude  5  degrees  and 
south  latitude  20  degrees,  from  north  to  south,  and  from 
the  Schingu  River  on  the  west  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean  on 
the  east.  This  stock,  which  is  one  of  the  most  extensive 
in  South  America,  contains  twenty-two  known  tribes. 

That  vast  region  lying  south  of  the  dividing  upland 
which  separates  the  southern  watershed  of  the  Amazon 
from  the  watershed  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  is  the  home 
of  a  number  of  wild  and  independent  stocks.  For  con 
venience  this  region  is  divided  into  three  divisions :  the 
Gran  Chaco,  or  northern ;  the  Pampean  and  Araucanian, 
or  middle,  and  the  Patagonian  and  Fuegian,  or  southern. 
Brinton  mentions  the  names  of  five  stocks  in  the  Gran 
Chaco,  one  in  the  Pampean  and  three  in  the  Patagonian 
region. 

Directing  our  attention  now  to  the  tribes  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  we  find  the  Canaris  in  the  region  around 
the  Gulf  of  Guayaquil,  and  the  Yuncas,  or  Chimus,  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  present  city  of  Truxillo.  Both  of  these 
tribes  were  skillful  artificers,  and  to  the  Yuncas  is  as 
cribed  one  of  the  most  noted  of  the  ruins  in  Peru,  Gran 
Chimu. 

In  Peru,  proper,  we  find  two  great  families,  the 
Aymara  and  the  Quichua.  Some  hold  that  they  are 
related,  others  that  they  are  independent.  The  first  can, 
probably,  claim  the  longer  residence  in  this  region,  and 
to  them  are  undoubtedly  due  the  ancient  monuments  of 
the  first  epoch  of  Peruvian  history.  To  the  Quichuas  be 
longed  the  Incas,  to  whom  are  ascribed  the  cities  of  the 
later  epoch  of  Peruvian  history.  The  Quichuas  inhabited 
a  territory  stretching  from  3  degrees  north  of  the  equa 
tor  to  32  degrees  south  of  the  equator,  and  reaching  from 
the  Pacific  Coast  some  hundred"  miles  into  the  interior. 
The  Aymaras  dwelt  south  and  east  of  the  Quichuas  upon 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  85 

the  plateau  and  western  slopes  of  the  Andes  and  from 
south  latitude  15  degrees  to  20  degrees. 

The  foregoing  descriptions,  while  very  brief,  will  be 
sufficient,  I  believe,  to  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the 
location  of  those  tribes  whose  names  will  be  mentioned 
in  this  book.  I  recommend  the  reading  of  Brinton's  ex 
cellent  and  comprehensive  wrork,  "The  American  Race," 
for  a  fuller  description  of  these  tribes  and  nations. 

THE  RUINS   OF  AMERICA. 

The  American  archaeological  field  may  be  divided,  for 
convenience,  into  six  sections:  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio 
Valleys  and  adjacent  territory;  the  southwestern  part  of 
the  United  States,  comprising  adjacent  portions  of  Utah, 
Colorado,  New  Mexico  and  Arizona;  Mexico;  Central 
America;  the  United  States  of  Colombia,  and  Peru.  Al 
though  in  other  parts  of  the  continent  ancient  tribes  have 
left  remains,  it  was  in  these  that  aboriginal  American  art 
reached  the  highest  stages  of  its  development. 

Antiquities  of  the  Mound  Builders. 

The  remains  of  the  Mound  Builders  are  found  chiefly 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers  and 
their  tributaries,  with  a  number  in  the  Southeastern 
States.  Yet,  while  this  may  be  called  the  territory  proper 
of  this  people,  their  remains  have  been  found  as  far 
west  as  British  Columbia  and  as  far  east  as  the  Atlantic 
Coast.  The  greatest  number  of  mounds  is  found  in  the 
State  of  Ohio,  which  has  ten  thousand  of  them.  New 
York  has  250.  And,  in  an  area  of  fifty  square  miles  on 
the  borders  of  the  States  of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  twenty- 
five  hundred  mounds  have  l:een  counted,  to  say  nothing 
of  inclosures. 

Squier  and  Davis,  who  in    1845-47  excavated  more 


86  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

than  two  hundred  of  the  mounds,  and  who  published  the 
account  of  their  explorations  in  their  well-known  work, 
"Ancient  Monuments  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,"  classify 
these  works,  according  to  their  probable  purposes,  as 

follows : 

(  Of  Sacrifice. 

f  For  Defense.     MnTTWn_    J  For  Temple  Sites. 
ENCLOSURES  \  Sacre  MOUNDS    •(  Qf  Sepulture 

I  Miscellaneous.  V.  Of  Observation. 

As  chief  among  the  defensive  inclosures  may  be 
mentioned  Fort  Ancient  in  Warren  County,  Ohio.  It 
is  situated  upon  a  bluff,  about  three  hundred  feet  high, 
on  the  east  bank  of  the  Little  Miami.  The  wall  ranges 
in  height  from  three  or  four  to  nineteen  feet  and  is 
from  twenty-five  to  seventy  feet  wide  at  the  base.  It  is 
made  of  earth  and  rough  stones  and  incloses  an  area  of 
about  eighty  acres,  though  the  wall  itself,  on  account  of 
its  windings,  is  about  three  and  a  half  miles  in  length. 
The  dirt  composing  the  wall  was  obtained  from  the 
inside,  thus  forming  an  internal  trench  or  moat.1  The 
fortress  at  Bourneville,  Ohio,  twelve  miles  from  Chilli- 
cothe,  is  also  worthy  of  notice.  As  is  generally,  if  not 
always,  the  case  with  defensive  inclosures,  it  crowns  the 
summit  of  a  steep  hill.  Its  walls  are  of  unworked  stones 
thrown  together  and  are  more  than  two  miles  in  length. 
Three  entrances  are  still  to  be  made  out,  and  these  are 
defended  with  mounds.  In  a  number  of  places,  especially 
near  the  entrances,  the  walls  show  the  action  of  fierce 
fires.  The  territory  inclosed  is  given  by  MacLean  as  140 
acres.2  Fort  Hill,  another  of  Ohio's  ancient  monument?, 
is  in  Highland  County  on  an  eminence  overlooking  Paint 
Creek.  The  walls  are  composed  of  mingled  earth  and 
stone,  are  from  four  to  six  feet  high  by  thirty-five  feet 

1  "American    Archaeology,"    pp.    125,    126. 

2  "The    Mound    Builders,"    p.    23.      "Prehistoric   America,"    p.    89. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  87 

thick  and  inclose  an  area  of  in  acres.  The  hill  from 
which  it  rises  is  said  to  be  five  hundred  feet  high  and  the 
wall  over  a  mile  and  a  half  in  length.1 

A  number  of  earthworks,  because  of  their  form  and 
location,  are  supposed  to  have  been  sacred  inclosures. 
The  walls  are  usually  circular  or  square,  the  circular 
works  having  nearly  a  uniform  diameter  of  from  250  to 
300  feet.  The  reasons  given  for  classifying  them  as 
sacred  inclosures  are:  First,  they  are  of  smaller  dimen 
sions  ;  secondly,  the  ditches  are  on  the  inner  side  of  the 
embankment ;  thirdly,  "altars"  are  found  within  them ; 
and,  fourthly,  they  are  more  often  found  on  the  river 
bottoms,  frequently  overlooked  by  adjacent  heights. 
However,  all  archaeologists  do  not  agree  that  these  works 
were  for  sacred  purposes.  Prof.  Cyrus  Thomas  ("Amer 
ican  Archaeology,"  p.  131)  says:  "Although  this  view  has 
been  accepted  by  numerous  authors,  it  does  not  appear  to 
be  founded  on  any  valid  reason.  The  more  reasonable 
conclusion  which  is  generally  accepted  at  the  present  day 
is  that  they  have  been  fortified  villages.  Lewis  H.  Mor 
gan  suggested  that  where  the  square  and  the  circle  were 
combined,  the  former  surrounded  the  village,  while  the 
latter,  which  is  often  without  a  trench,  was  a  substitute 
for  a  fence  about  the  garden  in  which  the  villagers  culti 
vated  their  maize,  beans,  squashes  and  tobacco." 

The  mounds  of  sacrifice,  or  "altar  mounds,"  are 
found  at  various  points  throughout  the  country.  The 
distinguishing  feature  about  them,  and  that  which  gives 
them  their  name,  is  an  altar,  or  hearth,  made  of  clay  or 
stone  found  at  the  base  resting  on  the  original  surface. 
These  altars  are  of  different  shapes,  round,  elliptical, 
square  or  oblong,  and  in  size  range  from  two  to  fifty  feet 

1  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.   89. 


88  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

by  twelve  or  fifteen,  the  average  dimensions  being  from 
five  to  eight.  Upon  excavation  these  altars  have  been 
found  to  contain  calcined  human  bones,  and  implements 
and  trinkets  of  various  kinds,  such  as  carved  stones, 
mica  ornaments,  copper  bracelets,  discs  and  tubes,  shell 
beads,  pottery,  spearheads  and  the  like.  It  is  very  prob 
able  that  these  altars,  instead  of  being  for  sacrifice,  were 
for  the  purpose  of  cremating  the  dead,  or  were  the  beds 
where  victims  were  burned  at  the  stake,  as  they  were 
used  for  this  purpose  after  the  coming  of  the  whites. 
The  mound  group  at  Mound  City,  Ohio,  three  miles 
north  of  Chillicothe,  on  the  Scioto  River,  contains  a 
number  of  these  so-called  altar  mounds.  One  of  them 
is  ninety  feet  in  diameter  at  the  base  by  seven  and  one- 
half  feet  high.  The  altar  was  ten  by  eight  feet  in  dimen 
sions  at  the  base  and  six  by  four  at  the  top,  being 
eighteen  inches  high.  The  dip  of  its  concave  surface 
was  nine  inches.  The  hollow  contained  a  deposit  of 
ashes  three  inches  thick  and  a  few  shell  and  pearl  beads.1 
Of  so-called  temple  mounds,  we  have  those  at  Mari 
etta,  Newark  and  Portsmouth,  Ohio ;  Cahokia,  Illinois, 
and  Seltzertown,  Mississippi.  One  of  the  temple  mounds 
at  Marietta  is  10  feet  high,  188  feet  long  and  132  feet 
wide.  Leading  up  to  its  summit  are  four  graded  ascents, 
midway  upon  each  side,  each  being  sixty  feet  long  by 
twenty-five  wide.2  The  Cahokia  mound  was  by  far  the 
largest  and  has  been  called  the  "monarch  of  all  the 
mounds."  It  was  located  within  a  group  of  about  sixty 
others  and  was  in  the  form  of  a  parallelogram,  being 
720  by  560  feet  at  the  base  and  .ninety  feet  high,  trun 
cated  at  the  top.  The  dimensions  of  its  truncated  sum 
mit  were  310  by  146  feet.  On  its  top  was  a  conical 


1  "The   Mound   Builders,"   p.   48. 
2  "The   Mound   Builders,"   p.   45. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  89 

mound,  ten  feet  high,  which,  upon  excavation,  was  found 
to  contain  human  bones,  pieces  of  flint  and  fragments  of 
pottery.1  The  great  mound  at  Seltzertown  is  almost  as 
large  as  was  that  at  Cahokia.  In  its  form  it  is  a  paral 
lelogram,  being  six  hundred  by  four  hundred  feet  at  the 
base  and  forty  feet  high.  The  platform  is  reached  by  a 
flight  of  steps  and  is  about  three  acres  in  area.  From 
the  summit  rise  three  conical  mounds,  the  largest  of 
which  is  forty  feet  high,  giving  the  entire  structure  an 
altitude  of  eighty  feet.  The  northern  face  of  the  mound 
is  strengthened  by  a  wall  of  sun-dried  bricks  two  feet 
thick,  many  of  which  still  retain  the  finger-marks  of  the 
builders.2  The  temple  mounds  are  all  truncated  and 
many  of  them  are  terraced. 

The  great  mound  at  Grave  Creek,  West  Virginia, 
ranks  among  the  most  important  of  the  mounds  of  sepul 
ture.  It  is  one  thousand  feet  in  circumference  at  the  base 
and  seventy  feet  high.  Three  chambers  were  found  in  it, 
two  at  the  base,  the.  other  thirty  feet  above.  The  upper 
chamber  contained  one  body ;  one  of  the  lower  chambers 
two — one  of  a  male,  the  other  of  a  female.  With  these 
remains  were  also  found  mica  ornaments,  shell  collars, 
copper  bracelets  and  fragments  of  carved  stone.  The 
third  chamber  contained  ten  skeletons  in  a  squatting  pos 
ture,  supposed  to  have  been  victims  immolated  in  honor 
cf  the  chief.  The  walls  and  ceilings  were  made  of 
beams,  which,  decaying  away,  let  the  superimposed  mass 
of  earth  and  stones  down  upon  the  skeletons.3  A  se 
pulchral  mound  at  New  Madrid,  Missouri,  upon  explora 
tion,  was  found  to  be  900  feet  in  circumference  at 
its  base  and  570  at  its  summit.  In  its  interior  was  found 

1  "Prehistoric  America,"   p.    103. 

2  "Prehistoric    America,"    pp.    103,    104. 

3  "Prehistoric    America,"    p.    116. 


90  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

a  chamber  formed  of  elm  or  cypress  poles  set  together 
like  the  rafters  of  a  house,  the  ends  being  tied  together 
with  reeds.  This  chamber  was  coated  both  inside  and 
out  with  a  coating  of  marl,  the  inside  coating  being  care 
fully  smoothed  and  painted  with  red  ochre.  Excavations 
yielded  syenite  discs,  numerous  pieces  of  pottery  and  one 
vessel  inclosing  a  human  skull  which  could  not  be  re 
moved.1 

The  great  Miamisburg  mound,  in  Ohio,  is  classed  by 
MacLean  among  the  mounds  of  observation.  It  is  situ 
ated  on  a  high  hill,  just  east  of  the  Great  Miami,  and 
has  a  commanding  view  of  the  valley.  It  is  852  feet  in 
circumference  by  sixty-eight  in  height.  A  beacon  light 
displayed  from  its  summit  could  easily  be  seen  from  the 
high  mound  near  Elk  Creek,  in  Butler  County,  and  from 
there  warning  could  be  given  to  all  the  inclosures  in  that 
part  of  the  State.2  Lookout  Mountain,  near  Circleville, 
Ohio,  is  also  supposed  to  be  a  mound  of  observation. 

There  is  still  another  class  of  mounds  which  remain 
to  be  mentioned,  those  that  resemble  animals,  birds  and 
the  human  figure  and  which  are  known  as  effigy  mounds. 
These  abound  in  the  State  of  Wisconsin,  and  have  also 
been  found  elsewhere.  Their  purpose  was  evidently 
totemic.  Of  this  class  I  mention  two,  the  Great  Serpent 
and  the  Great  Elephant.  The  former  is  found  in  Adams 
County,  Ohio,  on  a  hill  overlooking  Brush  Creek.  Its 
coils  are  seven  hundred  feet  long  and  in  its  mouth  it  has 
an  egg-shaped  mound  whose  major  axis  is  160  feet.3 
The  latter  is  found  in  Grant  County,  Wisconsin,  eight 
miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Wisconsin  River,  and  is  135 

1  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.    104. 

2  "The    Mound   Builders,"   p.    59. 
8  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.    126. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  gi 

feet  long-  by  sixty  broad  at  the  broadest  part.1  Prof. 
Cyrus  Thomas,  who  explored  it  in  1884  under  the  di 
rection  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  declares  that  it 
was  intended  to  represent  a  bear,  the  proboscis  being 
made  by  drifting  sand. 

Other  works  of  the  Mound  Builders  might  be  men 
tioned,  but  as  this  is  not  intended  to  be  a  work  of  de 
scriptive  archaeology,  I  forbear,  referring  the  reader  to 
the  authors  quoted  from  and  referred  to  for  further 
information  concerning  the  mounds. 

Antiquities  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers. 

The  country  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers,  in  the  southwest 
ern  part  of  the  United  States,  affords  much  that  is  inter 
esting  to  the  antiquarian.  Here,  in  a  region  of  mountain 
ranges  and  arid  deserts,  with  an  occasional  fertile  valley, 
a  numerous  population  once  lived  and  developed  a  stage 
of  culture  considerably  beyond  that  of  the  wild  tribes  of 
North  America. 

Mr.  G.  Nordenskiold  classifies  the  works  of  this 
people  geographically  as  follows:  (i)  The  ruins  on  the 
upper  course  of  the  Colorado  and  its  tributaries.  (2) 
The  ruins  on  the  Rio  Grande  and  its  tributaries.  And 
(3)  the  ruins  on  the  Gila  and  its  tributaries. 

Holmes  classifies  these  works  topographically  as :  ( I ) 
Settlements  in  the  valleys  and  on  the  plains.  (2)  Settle 
ments  on  the  high  plateaus  or  mesas.  (3)  Cliff  dwell 
ings.  And  (4)  cave  dwellings. 

The  villages  or  settlements  found  in  the  valleys  or  on 
the  plains  and  mesas  consist  of  pueblos  made  of  stone 
or  adcbe  laid  in  clay  or  mud  and  forming  parallelograms 
or  circles  laid  out,  where  the  ground  permits,  with  great 

1  "Prehistoric  America,"  p.  125. 


92  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

regularity.  The  pueblos  were,  in  fact,  colossal  com 
munal  houses,  built  of  several  stories  facing  an  inclosed 
area,  and  receding  in  the  form  of  steps  on  the  inside, 
but  with  the  outer  walls  perpendicular.  A  few  of  the 
pueblos  are  inhabited  to-day,  but  some  of  them  were 
deserted  as  far  back  as  1540,  when  Coronado  visited 
them.  This  class  of  ruins  is  found  chiefly  in  the  drain 
age  area  of  the  San  Juan  and  in  or  along  the  valleys  of 
the  Mancos,  Las  Animas  and  Rio  de  la  Plata,  at  the 
Aztec  Springs  in  Montezuma  Valley,  in  the  McElmo  and 
Hovenweep  Canyons  and  on  the  wild  plateau  around  the 
Grand  Canyon. 

The  cave  dwellings  occur  chiefly  on  the  west  side  of 
the  Rio  Grande  from  Santa  Clara  to  Cochiti,  a  distance 
of  about  seventy-five  miles,  and  in  the  San  Juan  Valley, 
especially  above  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Mancos.  In  the 
former  section  the  cliffs,  of  a  yellow  volcanic  tufa  o( 
coarse  texture,  rise  to  the  height  of  from  fifty  to  two 
hundred  feet  above  the  sloping  debris  which  extends 
downward  to  the  bottom  of  the  canyons.  It  was  in  the 
lower  part  of  these  perpendicular  cliffs  that  the  ancient 
inhabitants  hollowed  out  their  places  of  dwelling.  These 
caves  were  formed  by  first  cutting  in  the  face  of  the  rock 
the  door  to  the  depth  of  about  a  foot,  and  then  hollowing 
out  the  room,  which  was  generally  oval  or  irregularly 
rounded,  about  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  and  with  the  ceil 
ing  cnly  sufficiently  high  to  permit  a  full-grown  person 
to  stand  upright.  Along  the  walls,  on  the  inside,  niches 
and  recesses  were  dug  which  served  as  places  in  which 
to  store  the  articles  of  domestic  use.  The  outside  walls 
were  sometimes  pierced  with  irregular  holes  which  prob 
ably  served  for  windows.  In  some  instances  the  outer 
walls  were  artificial  and  made  of  stone. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  95 

The  cliff  dwellings  are  found  at  various  points 
throughout  the  Rio  Colorado  basin  and  in  the  Grand 
and  Mancos  Canyons,  besides  in  various  other  localities 
in  the  Southwest.  They  are  constructed  on  the  shelves 
and  in  the  recesses  of  the  cliffs  and  at  their  base.  They 
are  usually  circular  or  rectangular  in  shape  and  are  made 
of  stone  and  mortar.  In  many  of  them  even  wooden 
beams  and  articles,  textile  fabrics  and  bone  implements 
are  well  preserved.  It  is  claimed  that  in  the  Rio  Mancos 
region  alone  there  are  as  many  as  five  hundred  of  these 
dwellings.1 

Antiquities  of  the  Mexicans. 

Passing  southward  into  Mexico,  we  come  to  a  group 
of  ruins  known  as  the  Casas  Grandes,  in  the  State  of 
Chihuahua.  These  ruins  consist  of  the  remains  of  walls 
made  of  sun-dried  blocks  of  mud  and  gravel  and  varying 
in  thickness  from  sixteen  inches  to  four  feet.  The  build 
ings  were  several  stories  in  height,  the  central  portions 
being  higher  than  the  outer.  Holes,  rectangular,  round 
and  oval  in  shape,  were  cut  through  the  walls,  and  were 
evidently  for  ventilation  and  the  admission  of  light.2 

In  the  State  of  Zacatecas,  six  miles  from  the  present 
tow  i  of  Villanueva,  are  found  a  group  of  ruins  known 
to  archaeologists  as  Quemada.  They  are  situated  upon  a 
plateau  a  half  mile  in  length  by  from  two  hundred  to 
five  hundred  yards  in  width  and  guarded  at  the  approach 
able  points  by  stone  walls.  Where  the  interior  surface 
is  uneven  it  is  formed  into  terraces  by  walls  of  solid 
masonry.  These  terraces  originally  supported  numerous 
edifices  the  remains  of  which  are  still  to  be  made  out. 
One  of  the  most  important  of  the  monuments  at  Que- 


"American   Archaeology,"   pp.   203-220. 
"American    Archaeology,"    pp.    223-229. 


96  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

mada  is  a  pyramid  thirty-six  feet  square  by  nineteen  feet 
high,  built  with  six  successive  stages  or  steps.  The 
material  out  of  which  all  these  works  are  constructed  is 
chiefly  gray  porphyry  made  into  undressed  slabs  three  or 
four  inches  thick  and  laid  in  reddish  clay  mortar  mixed 
with  grass  or  straw.1 

On  the  site  of  the  present  unimportant  town  of  Tula, 
fifty  or  sixty  miles  north  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  there 
formerly  existed  the  capital  of  the  Toltecs,  which, 
according  to  tradition,  was  variously  known  as  Tula, 
Tulla,  Tulha,  Tulan,  Tolan  or  Tollan.  This  ancient  city 
spread  over  a  plain  crossed  by  a  muddy  river,  which 
still  flows  round  the  base  of  Mount  Coatepetl.  But  few 
antiquities  have,  however,  been  found  in  this  locality. 
Among  these  are  fragments  of  sculptured  columns  carved 
to  represent  a  feathered  serpent.  Charnay  also  discov 
ered  in  tumuli  near  the  present  town  the  foundations  of 
two  ancient  dwellings,  one  of  which  consisted  of  rooms, 
cisterns,  corridors  and  stairways.  Other  ruins  of  build 
ings  and  pyramids  were  also  found.2 

About  twenty-five  miles  northeast  of  the  City  of 
Mexico  stand  the  ruins  of  Teotihuacan,  the  "City  of  the 
Gods."  This  city  is  easily  at  the  head  of  all  the  ancient 
cities  of  Mexico  in  the  magnitude  of  its  ruins  and  the 
evidences  it  bears  of  population  and  antiquity.  Its  prin 
cipal  works  are  the  Pyramids  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  the 
Citadel  and  the  "Pathway  of  the  Dead."  The  Pyramid 
of  the  Sun  is  a  colossal  mound  with  a  square  base  meas 
uring  seven  hundred  feet  on  a  side  and  towering  upward 
to  an  altitude  of  180  feet.  The  Pyramid  of  the  Moon  is 
smaller,  measuring  nearly  five  hundred  feet  on  a  side  and 
is  of  proportional  height.  The  Citadel  is  a  rectangular 

1  "American   Archaeology,"   p.   251. 

3  "American    Archaeology,"    pp.    255-237. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  99 

inclosure  1,350  by  1,400  feet  in  width  and  length  and 
surrounded  by  walls  varying  from  100  to  180  feet  in 
width  and  from  10  to  20  feet  high.  The  Pathway  of  the 
Dead  is  described  by  Thomas  as  follows :  "The  latter,  a 
depressed  way  varying  from  two  to  three  hundred  feet 
in  width,  extends  southward  a  distance  of  over  two  miles, 
and  is  flanked  on  either  side  by  an  almost  unbroken  series 
of  mounds  and  terraces  ranging  in  height  from  ten  to 
thirty  feet." — American  Archaeology,  p.  260.  Teotihua- 
can  is  attributed  by  most  writers  to  pre-Aztecan  times.1 

At  Cholula  the  remains  of  a  great  square  pyramid  are 
still  to  be  seen.  The  size  ot  this  pyramid  is  variously 
given,  Bandelier  ascribing  to  it  a  perimeter  at  the  base 
of  7,740  feet  and  a  height  of  165  feet.  Tradition  says 
that  it  is  of  pre-Aztecan  origin,  and  that  it  was  formerly 
surmounted  by  a  temple  to  Quetzalcoatl. 

Thirty  miles  almost  straight  east  of  the  capital  of  the 
State  of  Oajaca  lie  the  remains  of  the  ancient  Zapotec 
capital,  Mitla.  Its  original  name  was  Tiobaa,  or  Yobaa, 
"the  place  of  tombs,"  and  its  present  name  in  the  Aztec 
tongue  signifies  the  "dwelling  of  the  dead."  The  region 
in  which  these  remains  are  found  is  one  of  the  most 
desolate  in  southern  Mexico,  being  a  high,  narrow  valley 
surrounded  by  bare  hills  and  with  a  soil  of  fine  powdery 
sand  in  which  nothing  grows  save  a  few  scattered  pita- 
hayas.  A  stream  flows  through  the  valley  between 
parched  and  shadeless  banks  which  becomes  a  torrent  in 
the  rainy  season.  The  songs  of  birds  are  never  heard 
and  the  fragrance  of  flowers  is  never  breathed  among 
the  desolate  ruins,  but  venomous  spiders  and  scorpions 
abound.  The  number  of  original  structures  has  been 
different  stated  by  different  explorers  according  to 

1  "American  Archaeology,"  pp.   259-263. 

2  "American   Archaeology,"   p.    267. 


ioo  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

their  own  peculiar  methods  of  counting.  The  most  im 
portant  are  the  temples,  or  palaces,  four  in  number,  made 
of  stones  dressed  with  regularity,  and  with  well-cut 
joints,  faultless  bends  and  edges  of  unequaled  sharp 
ness.  The  mosaics  at  Mitla  are  some  of  the  finest  that 
are  to  be  found  among  the  ruins  of  ancient  America.  A 
characteristic  and  distinguishing  feature  of  the  architec 
ture  of  this  city  is  a  number  of  large  stone  columns  run 
ning  through  the  middle  of  some  of  the  rooms  and  prob 
ably  intended  as  supports  for  the  roofs.  These  ruins 
were  probably  built  at  an  early  period  of  Zapotec  civili 
zation,  and  continued  the  chief  center  of  that  people 
down  to  a  century  or  two  before  the  Conquest,  to  a  dis 
astrous  conflict  between  the  Zapotecs  and  Aztecs.1 

Antiquities  of  Central  America. 

Hidden  away  in  the  tropical  forest  of  the  State  of 
Chiapas  in  Central  America  lie  the  ancient  ruins  of  Oto- 
lum  or  Palenque.  These  ruins  are  by  far  the  grandest 
in  America,  and  are  very  probably  among  the  oldest. 
The  city  is  situated  on  both  sides  of  a  branch  of  the 
Usumacinta  River,  about  seven  miles  southwest  of  Santo 
Domingo  and  sixty-five  miles  northeast  of  San  Chris- 
toval,  the  State  capital,  and  covers  an  area  of,  probably, 
not  more  than  a  mile  square,  although  it  has  been  claimed 
that  it  stretches  along  the  stream  for  several  leagues. 
Among  the  best-preserved  ruins  are  those  of  the  Palace 
and  of  the  Temples  of  the  Three  Tablets,  of  the  Bas 
Reliefs,  of  the  Cross  and  of  the  Sun.  The  Palace  is  the 
most  important  of  the  remaining  edifices  of  Palenque 
and  stands  upon  a  pyramid  forty  feet  high  and  310  by 
260  feet  long  and  broad  at  the  base.  The  interior  of  the 


'American  Archaeology,"  pp.  268-273. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


101 


102  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

pyramid  is  formed  of  earth,  but  the  exterior  is  a  cover 
ing  of  stone  slabs.  A  flight  of  steps  leads  up  to  the 
summit,  upon  which  stands  the  principal  building,  form 
ing  a  quadrilateral  of  228  -feet  by  180.  The  walls  of  the 
Palace  are  made  of  rubble,  two  or  three  feet  thick,  and 
are  coated  both  inside  and  out  with  a  very  durable  stucco 
painted  red  or  blue,  black  or  white.  The  edifice  faces 
the  east  and  has  fourteen  entrances,  nine  feet  wide,  sepa 
rated  by  pillars  ornamented  with  carved  figures.  On  the 
inside  there  are  galleries  running  around  a  court,  with 
rooms  decorated  with  granite  bas-reliefs  carved  with 
grotesque  figures  some  thirteen  feet  high.  The  rooms 
are  connected  by  corridors.  The  roof  is  surmounted  by 
a  peculiarly  shaped  cone.  The  Temple  of  the  Three 
Tablets  also  stands  upon  a  mound  and  is  76  feet  long, 
25  wide  and  35  high.  The  Temple  of  the  Cross  is  de 
scribed  as  50  feet  long,  31  feet  wide  and  40  feet  high. 
And  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  is  said  to  be  28  feet  wide  by 
38  feet  long.  The  last  two  structures,  like  the  former, 
are  built  upon  stone- faced  pyramids  and  are  decorated 
with  bas-reliefs.  The  dates  assigned  for  the  erection  of 
Palenque  have  varied  from  before  the  flood  to  a  few 
centuries  before  the  Spanish  Conquest.1 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  ancient  cities  of 
Yucatan  is  Uxmal,  the  remains  of  which  lie  some  thirty- 
five  or  forty  miles  south  of  Merida,  the  present  capital. 
The  most  important  of  the  ruins  cover,  an  area  of  not 
more  than  half  a  mile  square  and  consist  of  some  five 
or  six  buildings,  mounted  as  usual  upon  pyramids,  a 
tennis  court  and  three  or  four  mounds,  whose  edifices, 
if  they  ever  existed,  have  entirely  disappeared.  One  of 
the  buildings  is  the  Casa  del  Gobernador,  or  Governor's 

1  "Prehistoric  America,"  p.  319. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  103 

House.  It  is  reared  on  a  colossal  terrace,  and  "is  the 
most  extensive,  best  known  and  most  magnificent  monu 
ment  of  Central  America."  This  house  is  325  feet  long 
by  forty  broad,  and  has  a  promenade  thirty  feet  wide 
running  entirely  around  it.  The  height  from  the  base 
to  its  level  top  is  twenty-six  feet,  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
upper  half  of  which  is  a  profusely  ornamented  frieze 
running  entirely  around  the  building,  a  distance  of  725 
feet.  'This  elaborate  ornamentation,  which  is  all  in 
wrought  stone,  consists  of  a  checkered  or  lattice  back 
ground ;  Greek  frets,  series  of  bars  terminating  with 
serpent  heads,  the  interspaces  being  covered  with  hiero 
glyphs ;  human  figures  with  immense  head-dresses  over 
the  doorways  (the  human  figures  have  all  been  broken 
away)  ;  and  an  upper  line  of  great  stone  masks,  with 
long,  curved,  proboscis-like  noses." — American  Archae 
ology,  p.  291.  This  edifice  is  divided  lengthwise,  by  a 
wall  running  through  the  middle,  into  two  series  of 
rooms.  It  is  made  of  rubble  and  gray  limestone,  the 
latter  forming  the  facings  and  the  former  filling  up  the 
interior.  The  limestone  is  cut  into  large  square  blocks 
laid  with  precision  and  are  in  most  instances  plain.  The 
rear  wall  is  nine  feet  thick  and  without  openings,  except 
near  the  ends,  where  there  are  recesses,  entrance  being 
gained  from  the  front.  Other  structures  of  interest  to 
archaeologists  are  the  Nunnery,  the  Temple  of  the  Dwarf 
or  Magician  and  the  House  of  the  Pigeons.1 

Chichen  Itza,  the  most  important  ruins  in  eastern 
Yucatan,  lies  twenty  miles  west  of  the  present  city  of 
Valladolid,  in  the  midst  of  a  forest-covered  plain.  Its 
name  signifies  "The  Mouth  of  the  Well  of  the  Itzas," 
and  was  probably  given  on  account  of  two  great  natural 

1  "American    Archaeology,"    pp.    288-295. 


104  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

wells  or  cenotes  which  are  found  within  its  area.  The 
principal  ruins  cover  a  territory  considerably  less  than  a 
mile  square  and  consist  of  about  a  half-dozen  important 
structures,  with  a  number  of  others  of  less  importance 
that  have  not  been  explored.  These  structures  have  been 
named  by  archaeologists  so  that  they  may  be  distinguished 
from  one  another,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  they  have 
been  correctly  named.  We  have  the  Nun's  Palace,  the 
Caracol  or  Tower,  the  Castillo  or  Castle,  the  Gymnasium 
and  the  House  of  the  Tigers.  The  Castillo  is  the  most 
important  of  these  edifices.  It  consists  of  a  block-like 
superstructure  built  upon  the  summit  of  a  steep,  terraced 
pyramid  seventy-five  or  eighty  feet  high.  The  sides  of 
this  pyramid  are  divided  into  nine  steps  or  terraces,  and 
running  up  each  of  the  sides  from  bottom  to  top  is  a 
broad  stone  stairway.  At  least  one  of  these  stairways  is 
bordered  with  balustrades  carved  to  represent  serpents 
and  ending  at  the  bottom  in  huge  serpent  heads  with 
open  mouths  and  protruding  tongues.  The  temple  itself 
is  of  usual  form ;  a  front  entry  extends  its  whole  length 
and  is  interrupted  by  two  columns,  placed  at  equal  dis 
tances  supporting  a  wooden  lintel  and  carved  to  repre 
sent  feathered  serpents  with  the  heads  bent  outward  at 
the  base.  Columns  of  the  same  form  are  also  found  in 
the  House  of  the  Tigers,  and  they  are  so  similar  to  those 
discovered  at  Tula,  mentioned  before,  that  there  is  little 
doubt  that  their  sculptors  were  governed  by  the  same 
religious  ideas  and  motives.  The  chief  sculptures  in  the 
Castle  are  those  of  human  form,  elaborately  costumed, 
stern  featured  and  represented,  in  some  instances,  with 
long,  full  beards.1 

The   ruins  of  Tikal   are   found  about  twenty  miles 

1  "American   Archaeology,"    pp.    296-302. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


105 


northeast  of  Peten,  a  modern  town  in  the  present  State 
of  Peten.  One  of  the  most  important  of  the  edifices  is 
a  pyramid  which,  with  its  three-storied  temple,  measured, 
according  to  Maudsley,  the  English  explorer,  nearly  three 
hundred  feet  high,  probably  on  the  slope.  The  chief 
features  of  Tikal  architecture  which  have  impressed 
archaeologists  the  most  are  its  native  wood  carving, 
which  is  the  best,  so  far  as  is  known,  in  America ;  an 


CASA  COLORADO,  CHICKEN  ITZA. 

enormous  stone  serpent,  arched  and  ornamented,  holding 
between  its  open  jaws  a  human  figure  with  lofty  head 
dress  ;  an  erect  human  figure  with  lance  and  shield ;  and 
several  columns  of  beautifully  carved  hieroglyphics 
closely  resembling  those  at  Palenque  and  easily  recog 
nized  as  day  symbols  with  numerals  attached.1 

On  the  Rio  Motagua,  in  eastern  Guatemala,  lie  the 
celebrated  ruins  of  Quirigua.  These  ruins  consist  of  a 
number  of  square  or  oblong  mounds  and  terraces  rang 
ing  from  six  to  forty  feet  in  height,  some  standing  in 
isolated  positions,  others  clustered  together  in  groups. 


'American  Archaeology,"  p.  303. 


106  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Like  tne  pyramids  in  other  localities  in  Central  America, 
these  are  faced  with  worked  stone  and  their  summits 
reached  by  flights  of  stone  steps.  With  these  pyramids 
are  also  found  thirteen  or  more  monoliths  arranged 
irregularly  around  courts  or  plazas.  Six  of  these  mono 
liths  are  stone  columns,  measuring  from  three  to  five  feet 
square  and  from  fourteen  to  twenty  feet  high,  and  five 
are  carved  to  represent  turtles,  armadillos  or  similar 
animals.  The  columns  are  usually  carved  on  both  front 
and  back  sides  with  a  human  figure  standing  upright  and 
full-faced  in  a  stiff  and  conventional  attitude.  The  sides 
are  covered  with  hieroglyphics  like  those  at  Palenque 
and  Tikal.1 

The  ancient  city  of  Copan  lies  on  the  Copan  River  in 
Honduras  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  miles  directly  south 
of  Quirigua.  While  the  ruins  extend  along  the  river  for 
a  distance  of  two  miles,  'the  most  important  structures 
are  included  in  an  area  of  900  by  1,600  feet.  Stretching 
along  the  river  from  north  to  south  is  a  stone  wall,  which 
at  the  time  of  Stephens'  visit  was  624  feet  in  length  and 
from  sixty  to  ninety  feet  high,  in  some  places  fallen,  in 
others  entire.  This  wall  seems  to  have  formed  one  of 
the  sides  of  the  elevated  foundation  of  a  great  edifice 
whose  length,  running  east  and  west,  was  809  feet.  The 
wall  along  the  river  is  perpendicular,  but  the  other  sides 
of  the  foundation  are  sloping.  The  original  height  of 
the  terrace  platform  above  the  surface  of  the  ground  is 
supposed  to  have  been  about  seventy  feet.  This  massive 
structure  is  built  of  cut  stone  in  blocks  a  foot  and  a  half 
wide  by  three  to  six  feet  long,  and  required,  it  is  esti 
mated,  about  twenty-six  million  cubic  feet  in  its  construc 
tion.  On  the  platform  are  two  sunken  courts  about 

1  "American   Archaeology,"   pp.    303,   304. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  107 

thirty  feet  below  the  surface,  one  of  which  is  90  by  144 
feet  in  dimensions,  the  other  still  larger.  These  courts 
are  reached  by  flights  of  stone  steps.  On  the  platform  be 
tween  these  sunken  courts  rises  a  pyramid  to  the  height 
of  122  feet  on  the  slope,  in  steps  or  stages  each  six 
feet  high  and  nine  feet  wide.  In  addition  to  this  struc 
ture,  carved  obelisks,  statues  and  idols,  with  a  number  of 
stone  altars,  are  also  to  be  seen.  There  are  fourteen  of 
the  obelisks,  most  of  them  standing  and  in  good  preserva 
tion.  In  the  center  of  the  front  side  of  these  obelisks  is 
a  human  face,  usually  with  benign  and  peaceful  counte 
nance,  around  which  appears  a  profuse  mass  of  orna 
mentation.  On  the  sides  are  columns  of  hieroglyphics 
like  those  at  Palenque.  The  altars  resemble  those  at 
Quirigua.1 

This  completes  our  description  of  the  ruins  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America.  It  has  of  necessity  been  brief,  but 
has  been,  we  believe,  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  give 
the  reader  some  idea  of  those  ancient  cities,  many  of 
which  the  Mormons  claim  were  built  by  Jaredite  and 
Nephite  workmen.  Others  of  sufficient  importance  to 
deserve  mention  are  Zape,  Xochicalco,  Tusapan,  Mis- 
antla  and  Monte  Alban  in  Mexico ;  Ococingo  in  Chia 
pas  ;  Ake,  Izamal,  Kabah,  Labna  and  Tuloom  in  Yuca 
tan,  and  Utatlan  in  Guatemala. 

Antiquities  of  the  Muyscas. 

In  the  region  of  Bogota,  United  States  of  Colombia, 
there  formerly  lived  an  enterprising  people  known  to  us 
as  the  Chibchas  or  Muyscas.  Their  territory  was  only 
forty-five  leagues  long  by  from  twelve  to  fifteen  wide, 
and  yet  in  this  comparatively  small  region  they  developed 

1  "Native   Races,"   Vol.   IV.,   pp.   77-105 


io8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

a  culture  and  maintained  their  independence  against  their 
powerful  neighbors.  Nadaillac  sums  up  the  chief  fea 
tures  of  their  culture  in  the  following:  "Less  advanced, 
perhaps,  than  the  Aztecs  or  the  Peruvians,  the  Chibchas 
were  yet  able  to  lay  out  and  pave  roads,  to  span  their 
watercourses  with  bridges,  to  build  temples  with  columns 
to  their  gods,  to  carve  statues,  to  engrave  figures  on 
stone,  to  weave  and  dye  cotton  and  wool,  to  adorn  their 
woven  tissues  with  varied  patterns,  and  to  work  in  wood, 
stone,  and  the  metals.  Their  pottery  resembled  that  of 
other  people  of  America;  their  vessels  are  generally 
formed  of  three  superposed  layers ;  the  central  layer  is 
black,  whilst  the  internal  and  external  ones  are  of  finer 
earth  and  lighter  color.  The  ornaments  of  the  Chibchas 
were  collars  made  of  shells  which  came  from  the  coasts 
of  the  Pacific,  more  than  two  hundred  leagues  off ;  gold, 
stone  and  silver  pendants,  pearls  and  emeralds.  Their 
wealth  was  considerable,  and  chroniclers  relate  that  in 
the  first  few  months  succeeding  the  conquest  the  con 
quistadors  collected  spoil  of  which  the  value  exceeded 
thirty  million  francs.  If  these  figures  are  not  exagger 
ated,  they  are  really  enormous  for  the  time  and  country." 
— Prehistoric  America,  pp.  459,  466. 

The  chief  town  of  the  Muyscas  was  Sogomuxi,  which 
at  an  early  date  was  destroyed  by  the  Spaniard,  Quesada. 
It  is  thought  to  have  stood  in  the  vicinity  of  Tunja,  in 
the  State  of  Boyaca,  and  here  still  stand  thirteen  columns 
of  stone  from  twelve  to  fifteen  feet  high,  and  a  little 
farther  off,  near  some  extensive  ruins,  stand  nineteen 
others  which  are  not  so  tall,  while  along  the  coast  for 
two  miles  are  scattered  numerous  carved  stones,  relics 
of  the  ancient  civilization.1 

1  "Prehistoric  America,"  p.  461. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  109 

Antiquities  of  the  Peruvians. 

All  of  the  western  coast  of  South  America,  from  the 
modern  city  of  Truxillo  southward  to  Tumbez,  a  distance 
of  more  than  625  miles,  belonged,  according  to  Garci- 
lasso  de  la  Vega,  to  the  Chimus.  Tradition  says  that  this 
people  came  from  the  sea  and  that,  after  conquering  the 
wild  tribes,  they  began  a  career  of  industry  and  civiliza 
tion.  They  were  early  conquered  by  the  Incas  and  re 
mained  subject  to  them,  though  not  willingly,  untU  the 
Spanish  Conquest.  Their  capital  was  Gran  Chimu,  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  present  town  of  Truxillo.  Here  its 
ruins  extend  over  a  territory  nearly  fifteen  miles  long  by 
five  and  a  half  wide  and  consist  of  the  remains  of  mas 
sive  walls,  huacas,  palaces,  aqueducts,  reservoirs  and 
granaries,  some  in  a  fair  state  of  preservation.  One  of 
the  most  important  of  the  structures  is  the  huaca,  or 
venerated  structure,  of  Obispo.  It  is  built  of  a  con 
glomerate  of  stone  and  clay  and  is  150  feet  high,  580 
feet  square  at  the  base,  and  covers  an  area  of  eight  acres. 
Some  of  the  huacas  were  used  for  burial  purposes.  The 
palace,  which  rises  from  a  mound  of  successive  terraces, 
includes  a  number  of  buildings,  irregularly  arranged, 
built  of  adobe.  The  interior  is  divided  up  into  a  series 
of  halls,  rooms,  corridors  and  vaulted  crypts,  one  of  the 
rooms  being  fifty-two  feet  wide  and  its  length  exceeding 
one  hundred.  It  is  ornamented  with  stucco-work,  fine 
arabesques  and  Greek  frets,  the  latter  a  characteristic 
feature  of  Peruvian  ornamentation.  The  royal  necrop 
olis  was  not  far  from  the  palace,  and  excavations  have 
laid  bare  walls  of  immense  thickness  and  a  stairway  lead 
ing  to  a  number  of  vaulted  chambers  in  which  were 
found  several  dried-up  mummies  with  their  skulls  painted 
red.  The  prison  is  an  immense  inclosure  320  feet  by  240 


no  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

and  25  feet  high.  Within  this  inclosure  forty-five  cells 
have  been  found  arranged  in  five  rows  and  with  no  com 
munication  between  them.  A  rare  thing  about  these 
remains  is  that  dwelling-houses  have  been  made  out.1 

The  ancient  city  of  Pachacamac  was  situated  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  twenty  miles  from  Lima.  The  ruins  are 
now  in  extreme  decay,  only  a  single  burial-place  remain 
ing.  Perhaps  the  best  description  that  we  have  of  this 
ancient  city  is  that  of  Estete,  a  member  of  the  expedition 
led  by  Pizarro.  He  claims  that  the  town  was  large,  and 
that  near  the  temple  stood  a  house,  surrounded  by  five 
walls,  called  "The  House  of  the  Sun."  At  the  time  of 
his  writing,  the  entire  city  was  surrounded  with  a  wall, 
with  large  doors  opening  through  it,  which  was  already 
in  ruins,  even  at  that  time,  in  some  places.  The  Castle 
rose  from  a  rock  five  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea.  The  walls  of  this  rock  rose  in  four  terraces,  faced 
with  adobes,  painted  red.  Its  platform  covers  several 
acres,  and  is  covered  by  debris  which  once  formed  a 
number  of  important  buildings.  The  temple  faced  the 
south,  was  well  decorated  and  painted,  and  contained  an 
inner  sanctuary  in  which  a  wooden  image  of  the  Creator 
was  kept.  A  mile  and  a  half  away  still  stand  the  ruins 
of  the  "Nun's  Convent."  s 

At  Cuzco,  the  structures  are  made  of  extremely  hard 
rocks,  such  as  diorite,  porphyry  and  brown  trachyte. 
These  were  carried  by  main  force  from  the  quarries  of 
Anduhaylillas,  twenty-two  miles  distant,  the  Peruvians 
having  no  beasts  of  burden.  These  materials  were  cut 
into  great  blocks,  and  were  carefully  squared  and  fitted 
together  with  mortise  and  tenon.  No  mortar,  according 
to  Squier,  was  used  in  the  construction  of  any  of  these 


1  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.   395. 

2  "Prehistoric  America,"  pp.  392,  393. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  in 

buildings,  the  walls  being  kept  in  place  by  their  own 
weight.  At  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  the  most  important 
of  the  edifices  of  Cuzco  was  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  "the 
pride  of  the  capital  and  the  wonder  of  the  empire."  It 
was  so  enriched  with  the  precious  metal  that  it  was  given 
the  name  of  "The  Place  of  Gold."  It  consisted  of  one 
principal  and  several  inferior  buildings  in  the  center  of 
the  city,  all  made  of  stone  and  encompassed  with  a  wall. 
On  the  interior  of  the  principal  building,  on  the  western 
side,  was  a  golden  representation  of  the  sun  from  which 
emanated  golden  rays  of  light,  while  the  walls  and  ceil 
ings  everywhere  were  encrusted  with  the  golden  metal. 
A  golden  frieze,  or  belt,  encircled  the  whole  edifice  on 
the  outside.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all  of  this  lavish  adorn 
ment,  the  roof  of  this  temple  was  thatched  with  straw! 
Besides  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  there  were  others  dedi 
cated  to  the  moon,  stars  and  other  deities.  Prescott  says 
there  were  between  three  and  four  hundred  of  these.1 

Lake  Titicaca  is  twelve  thousand  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  and  soundings  have  revealed  a  depth  of  1,710 
feet.  It  is  one  hundred  miles  long  and  from  fifty  to 
seventy  wide,  and  is  dotted  by  a  number  of  islands.  The 
most  important  bears  the  name  of  the  lake  and  is  six 
miles  long  by  three  or  four  wide.  This  was  the  sacred 
island  of  the  ancient  Peruvians,  and  it  was  here  that 
tradition  says  were  born  Manco  Capac  and  Mama  Oello. 
It  is  covered  with  ruins,  the  most  important  of  which  are 
the  Palace  of  the  Sun,  the  Convent  and  the  Palace  of  the 
Incas.  The  island  of  Coati,  two  and  a  half  miles  long  by 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  wide,  six  miles  from  Titicaca, 
was  also  a  shrine  of  the  Peruvians.  As  Titicaca  was  dedi 
cated  to  the  sun,  so  Coati  was  dedicated  to  the  moon.2 

1  "Prehistoric  America,"  p.  410.     "Conquest  of  Peru,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  8-10, 

2  "Prehistoric   America,"   pp.   406-408. 


H2  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

The  ruins  of  the  ancient  city  of  Tiaghuanaco  rise 
from  the  center  of  a  basin  twelve  thousand  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  ocean,  formed  by  two  lakes,  Titicaca  and 
Aullagas,  and  overlooked  by  Mt.  Illampu,  the  loftiest 
mountain  in  South  America.  This  ancient  city  is  of  pre- 
Incan  origin,  and  was  evidently  the  seat  of  an  important 
civilization.  Here  are  found  a  number  of  colossal  mono 
liths,  carved  and  ornamented  with  bas-reliefs.  The  struc 
tures  were  built  of  stone,  "red  freestone,  a  slate-colored 
trachyte,  and  a  very  dark  basalt"  being  the  kinds,  highly 
polished  and  laid  one  upon  another  with  such  precision 
that  the  joints  are  hardly  perceptible.  The  most  impor 
tant  of  the  buildings,  which  we  shall  not  take  the  space 
to  describe,  are  the  Fortress,  the  Temple  and  the  Hall  of 
Justice.1 

For  a  fuller  description  of  the  antiquities  of  Peru,  I 
recommend  the  reading  of  the  interesting  chapter  on 
them  in  Nadaillac's  "Prehistoric  America,"  to  which  I  am 
indebted  for  most  of  the  facts  brought  out  in  the  last 
few  pages. 

Mormons  contend  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  must  be 
of  divine  origin  because  it  locates  the  ancient  American 
cities  in  those  very  localities  where  they  were  after 
wards  found.  On  this  point  Apostle  Orson  Pratt  writes : 
"In  the  Book  of  Mormon  are  given  the  names  and  loca 
tions  of  numerous  cities  of  great  magnitude,  which  once 
flourished  among  the  ancient  nations  of  America.  The 
northern  portions  of  South  America,  and  also  Central 
America,  were  the  most  densely  populated.  Splendid 
edifices,  palaces,  towers,  forts  and  cities  were  reared  in 
all  directions.  A  careful  reader  of  that  interesting  book 
can  trace  the  relative  bearings  and  distances  of  many  of 

1  "Prehistoric   America,"   pp.   400-406. 


CUMCRAH   REVISITED  113 

these  cities  from  each  other,  and,  if  acquainted  with  the 
present  geographical  features  of  the  country,  he  can,  by 
the  descriptions  given  in  that  book,  determine  very  nearly 
the  precise  spot  of  ground  they  once  occupied.  Now, 
since  that  invaluable  book  made  its  appearance  in  print,  it 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  mouldering  ruins  of  many 
splendid  edifices  and  towers,  and  magnificent  cities  of 
great  extent,  have  been  discovered  by  Catherwood  and 
Stephens  in  the  interior  wilds  of  Central  America,  in  the 
very  region  where  the  ancient  cities  described  in  the  Book 
of  Mormon  were  said  to  exist.  Here,  then,  is  certain  and 
indisputable  evidence  that  this  illiterate  youth — the  trans 
lator  of  the  Book  of  Mormon — was  inspired  of  God." — 
O.  Pratt 's  Works,  p.  278. 

But  this  claim  can  not  be  accepted  for  several  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  many  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America  were  discovered  long  before  the 
Book  of  Mormon  appeared.  Of  these  may  be  mentioned 
Copan,  Utatlan,  Chichen  Itza,  T'Ho,  Tuloom,  Palenque, 
Mitla,  Cholula,  Teotihucan  and  Mexico.  Therefore  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  in  placing  the  great  centers  of  aborig 
inal  population  in  this  region,  simply  stated  what  scien 
tific  men  already  knew  years  before  it  came  out.  Its 
fabricator  evidently  used  this  knowledge  to  good  advan 
tage  in  getting  up  his  story. 

In  the  second  place,  the  book  has  been  with  us  seventy 
years,  and  more,  and  yet  it  has  never  rendered  any  assist 
ance  whatever  to  the  archaeologist  in  making  his  discov 
eries.  It  has  never  revealed  the  location  of  a  single 
prehistoric  city.  The  investigator  who  would  depend 
upon  it  to  trace  the  relative  bearings  and  distances  of  the 
cities  of  Central  America  from  each  other  would  soon 
find  himself  bewildered.  When  brought  to  a  practical 
test,  this  "invaluable  book"  fails  at  the  very  point  where 


114  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

its  defenders  claim  that  it  is  accurate  and  reliable.  If  it 
is  what  its  defenders  assert  it  to  be,  why  have  they  left 
the  work  of  archaeological  research  wholly  in  the  hands 
of  uninspired  men?  Why  have  they  not  gone  forth,  Book 
of  Mormon  in  hand,  and  located  the  ruined  cities  of  Cen 
tral  America  and  thus  proved  its  infallibility  and  inspira 
tion? 

In  the  third  place,  its  geographical  and  topographical 
descriptions  are  so  vague  that  there  exists  a  difference  of 
opinion  among  even  the  Mormons  themselves  on  the  loca 
tion  of  many  of  the  cities  and  places  mentioned  in  the 
book.  Although  hundreds  of  cities,  countries  and  places 
are  mentioned,  but  few  landmarks  are  given  by  which 
they  may  be  located.  While  the  author  seems  to  have 
recognized  the  general  shape  of  the  central  portion  of  the 
continent  in  the  construction  of  his  story,  his  topograph 
ical  and  geographical  descriptions  are  very  vague  and 
indefinite.  The  Isthmus  of  Panama  is  called  "the  narrow 
neck  which  led  into  the  land  northward"  (Alma  30:3), 
and  this  seems  to  be  the  fixed  star  from  which  Mormon 
writers  make  all  their  geographical  calculations.  It  is 
easy  to  understand  that  by  the  Land  Northward  and  the 
Land  Southward  North  and  South  America  are  meant, 
and  that  by  the  Land  of  Many  Waters  the  United  States 
is  intended,  while  the  Land  of  Nephi  is  without  doubt  to 
be  located  somewhere  on  the  west  coast  of  South  Amer 
ica.  But  these  are  about  all  of  the  natural  and  political 
divisions  whose  locations  can  be  made  out  by  the  descrip 
tions  given.  On  the  location  of  other  countries  and  places 
there  is  disagreement,  conjecture  and  uncertainty,  and 
this  is  admitted  by  the  Josephite  Committee  on  American 
Archaeology:  "So  all  that  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  map 
ping  the  lands  and  places  of  dwelling  of  this  ancient  race 
is  by  approximation  and  probabilities,  in  the  main;  cer- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  115 

tainty  as  to  fixed  locality  being  the  exception,  while  much 
must  be  left  to  mere  theory." — Report,  p.  7.  This  ad 
mission  places  the  Josephite  Committee  on  American 
Archaeology  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Brighamite,  Orson 
Pratt. 

TRADITIONAL  HISTORY  OF  ANCIENT  AMERICA. 

The  Mound  Builders. 

To  the  people  who  erected  the  mounds  of  the  Missis 
sippi  and  Ohio  Valleys,  archaeologists,  for  want  of  a 
better  designation,  have  given  the  name  "Mound  Build 
ers."  This  people  possessed  in  all  parts  about  the  same 
degree  of  culture,  which  in  no  respect  differed  from  that 
of  the  more  advanced  tribes  of  American  Indians  when 
first  seen  by  the  whites. 

Who  were  the  Mound  Builders?  This  question  has 
probably  provoked  more  guesses  than  any  other  in  Amer 
ican  archaeology.  Some  have  been  certain  that  they  were 
a  people  from  Central  America,  who,  after  dwelling  in 
the  northern  valleys  for  a  long  time,  returned  into  Mexico 
as  the.  Toltecs.  Others  have  been  satisfied  to  speak  of 
them  simply  as  a  "lost  race"  without  trying  to  account 
for  either  their  origin  or  their  disappearance.  But  of 
late,  on  account  of  the  data  gathered  by  the  Smithsonian 
and  other  institutions,  archaeologists  have  pretty  generally 
settled  down  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  tribes  of 
American  Indians  and  not  a  lost  race  of  superior  culture. 
The  evidence  of  this  is  so  strong  that  it  is  sheer  folly 
any  longer  to  deny  it. 

The  most  important  tradition  which  reaches  back  to 
pre-Columbian  times  is  that  preserved  among  the  Del- 
awares.  It  was  given  to  the  world  by  the  missionary 
Heckewelder,,in  1819,  and  was  later  confirmed  by  Brinton 
in  his  translation  of  the  Delaware  Walam  Olum,  or  Red 


n6  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Score,  though  it  was,  without  doubt,  known  to  white  men 
before.  According  to  this  tradition,  the  Ohio  Valley  was, 
in  olden  times,  inhabited  by  the  Alligewi,  Talligewi,  Tal- 
ligeu  or  Tallike,  an  enterprising  and  numerous  race,  who 
lived  in  communities  and  tilled  the  soil.  It  is  stated  that 
this  people,  after  long  occupying  this  region,  were  finally 
driven  out  by  the  combined  forces  of  the  Lenape  and 
Hurons  and  forced  to  flee  to  the  south.  Name,  location, 
tradition  and  language  all  agree  in  identifying  this  ex 
pelled  people  with  the  Cherokees,  who  call  themselves 
Tsalagi. 

The  tradition,  as  given  by  Heckewelder,  runs  as  fol 
lows :  "The  Lenni  Lenape  (according  to  the  tradition 
handed  down  to  them  by  their  ancestors)  resided  many 
hundred  years  ago  in  a  very  distant  country  in  the  west 
ern  part  of  the  American  continent.  For  some  reason 
which  I  do  not  find  accounted  for,  they  determined  on 
migrating  to  the  eastward,  and  accordingly  set  out  to 
gether  in  a  body.  After  a  very  long  journey  and  many 
nights'  encampment  by  the  way,  they  at  length  arrived  on 
the  Namaesi-Sipu,  where  they  fell  in  with  the  Mengwe, 
who  had  likewise  emigrated  from  a  distant  country  and 
had  struck  upon  this  river  somewhat  higher  up.  Their 
object  was  the  same  with  that  of  the  Delawares:  they 
were  proceeding  on  to  the  eastward  until  they  should  find 
a  country  that  pleased  them.  The  spies  which  the  Lenape 
had  sent  forward  for  the  purpose  of  reconnoitering  had, 
long  before  their  arrival,  discovered  that  the  country  east 
of  the  Mississippi  was  inhabited  by  a  very  powerful 
nation,  who  had  many  large  towns  built  on  the  great 
rivers  flowing  through  their  land.  Those  people  (as  I 
was  told)  called  themselves  Talligeu  or  Tallegewi.  .  .  . 
Many  wonderful  things  are  told  of  this  famous  people. 
They  are  said  to  have  been  remarkably  tall  and  stout ;  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  117 

there  is  a  tradition  that  there  were  giants  among  them, 
people  of  much  larger  size  than  the  tallest  of  the  Lenape. 
It  is  related  that  they  had  built  to  themselves  regular 
fortifications  or  intrenchments,  from  whence  they  would 
sally  out,  but  were  generally  repulsed.  I  have  seen  many 
of  the  fortifications  said  to  have  been  built  by  them,  two 
of  which  in  particular  were  remarkable.  One  of  them 
was  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Huron,  which  empties 
itself  into  the  lake  St.  Clair  on  the  north  side  of 
that  lake,  at  the  distance  of  about  twenty  miles  north 
east  of  Detroit.  This  spot  of  ground  was,  in  the  year 
1776,  owned  and  occupied  by  a  Mr.  Tucker.  The 
other  works,  properly  intrenchments,  being  walls  or 
banks  of  earth  regularly  thrown  up,  with  a  deep 
ditch  on  the  outside,  were  on  the  Huron  River,  east  of 
the  Sandusky,  about  six  or  eight  miles  from  Lake  Erie. 
Outside  of  the  gateway  of  each  of  these  two  intrench 
ments,  which  lay  within  a  mile  of  each  other,  were  a 
number  of  large  flat  mounds,  in  which,  the  Indian  pilot 
said,  were  buried  hundreds  of  the  slain  Tallegwi,  whom 
I  shall  hereafter,  with  Colonel  Gibson,  call  Alligewi.  Of 
these  intrenchments  Mr.  Abraham  Steiner,  who  was  with 
me  at  the  time  when  I  saw  them,  gave  a  very  accurate 
description,  which  was  published  in  Philadelphia  in  1789 
or  1790,  in  some  periodical  work  the  name  of  which  I  can 
not  at  present  remember.  When  the  Lenape  arrived  on 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  they  sent  a  message  to  the 
Alligewi  to  request  permission  to  settle  themselves  in 
their  neighborhood.  This  was  refused  them,  but  they 
obtained  leave  to  pass  through  the  country  and  seek  a 
settlement  farther  to  the  eastward.  They  accordingly  be 
gan  to  cross  the  Namaesi-Sipu,  when  the  Alligewi,  seeing 
that  their  numbers  were  so  very  great,  and,  in  fact,  they 
consisted  of  many  thousands,  made  a  furious  attack  upon 


ii8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

those  who  had  crossed,  threatening  them  all  with  destruc 
tion  if  they  dared  to  persist  in  coming  over  to  their  side 
of  the  river.  Fired  at  the  treachery  of  these  people  and 
the  great  loss  of  men  they  had  sustained,  and,  besides,  not 
being  prepared  for  a  conflict,  the  Lenape  consulted  on 
what  was  to  be  done — whether  to  retreat  in  the  best 
manner  they  could,  or  to  try  their  strength  and  let  the 
enemy  see  that  they  were  not  cowards,  but  men,  and  too 
high-minded  to  suffer  themselves  to  be  driven  off  before 
they  had  made  a  trial  of  their  strength  and  were  con 
vinced  that  the  enemy  was  too  powerful  for  them.  The 
Mengwe,  who  had  hitherto  been  satisfied  with  being  spec 
tators  from  a  distance,  offered  to  join  them  on  condition 
that  after  conquering  the  country  they  should  be  entitled 
to  share  it  with  them.  Their  proposal  was  accepted,  and 
the  resolution  was  taken  by  the  two  nations  to  conquer 
or  die.  Having  thus  united  their  forces,  the  Lenape  and 
Mengwe  declared  war  against  the  Alligewi,  and  great 
battles  were  fought,  in  which  many  warriors  fell  on  both 
sides.  The  enemy  fortified  their  large  towns  and  erected 
fortifications,  especially  on  large  rivers  or  near  lakes, 
where  they  were  successfully  attacked  and  sometimes 
stormed  by  the  allies.  An  engagement  took  place  in 
which  hundreds  fell,  who  were  afterwards  buried  in  holes 
or  laid  together  in  heaps  and  covered  over  with  earth. 
No  quarter  was  given,  so  that  the  Alligewi  at  last,  finding 
that  their  destruction  was  inevitable  if  they  persisted  in 
their  obstinacy,  abandoned  the  country  to  the  conquerors, 
and  fled  down  the  Mississippi  River,  from  whence  they 
never  returned.  The  war  which  was  carried  on  with  this 
nation  lasted  many  years,  during  which  the  Lenape  lost 
a  great  number  of  their  warriors,  while  the  Mengwe 
would  always  hang  back  in  the  rear,  leaving  them  to  face 
the  enemy.  In  the  end  the  conquerors  divided  the  coun- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  119 

try  between  themselves.  The  Mengwe  made  choice  of 
the  lands  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  on  their 
tributary  streams,  and  the  Lenape  took  possession  of  the 
country  to  the  south.  For  a  long  period  of  time,  some 
say  many  hundred  years,  the  two  nations  resided  peace 
fully  in  this  country  and  increased  very  fast.  Some  of 
their  most  enterprising  huntsmen  and  warriors  crossed 
the  great  swamps,  and,  falling  on  the  streams  running  to 
the  eastward,  followed  them  down  to  the  great  bay  river 
(meaning  the  Susquehanna,  which  they  call  the  great  bay 
river  from  where  the  west  branch  falls  into  the  main 
stream),  thence  into  the  bay  itself,  which  we  call  Chesa 
peake.  As  they  pursued  their  travels  partly  by  land  and 
partly  by  water,  sometimes  near  and  at  other  times  on  the 
great  salt-water  lake,  as  they  call  the  sea,  they  discovered 
the  great  river  which  we  call  the  Delaware." — Cherokees 
in  Pre-Columbian  Times,  pp.  12-14. 

I  am  strongly  of  the  opinion  that  it  was  this  tradition 
that  suggested  to  the  originators  of  the  Mormon  fraud 
the  story  of  the  Nephites  fleeing  southward  after  their 
defeat  at  Cumorah. 

The  Central  Americans  and  Mexicans. 

Central  America  and  Mexico  were  the  seats  of  two 
distinct  and  semi-civilized  peoples,  the  M'ayas  and  Na- 
huas.  Of  these,  the  former  were  the  more  ancient  and 
cultured,  the  latter  the  more  recent  and  widespread.  The 
monuments,  hieroglyphics  and  languages  of  these  peoples 
show  marked  diversities,  but  some  of  the  myths  and  their 
calendar  systems  show  close  resemblances.1 

In  the  valley  of  the  Usumacinta,  in  Central  America, 
tradition  says  there  once  existed  a  mighty  Maya,  or  Col- 
hua,  empire  known  as  Xibalba,  or  the  empire  of  Chanes, 


1  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.   262. 


120  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

or  Serpents,  whose  attributed  founder  was  Votan,  who  is 
said  to  have  come  from  the  land  of  shadow  beyond  the 
seas.  Just  where  his  home  was  no  one  can  tell,  but  all 
sorts  of  conjectures  are  rife.  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg  sup 
posed  it  to  have  been  in  South  America  over  the  Carib 
bean  Sea  and  identified  him  and  his  followefs  with  the 
fleeing  Atlantes.  Some  of  the  Spanish  missionaries,  de 
termined  to  bend  every  tradition  to  make  it  harmonize 
with  their  theories,  placed  it  in  the  Old  World,  to  which, 
they  claimed,  he  made  four  visits,  during  which  he  saw 
the  ruins  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  and  Solomon's  temple. 
The  Chiapanese  are  said  to  have  called  him  "the  grand 
son  of  that  respectable  old  man  that  built  the  great  ark" 
(  ?)  ;  and  Short  says  of  this  tradition :  "The  tradition  of 
Votan,  the  founder  of  Maya  culture,  though  somewhat 
warped,  probably  by  having  passed  through  priestly 
hands,  is,  nevertheless,  one  of  the  most  valuable  pieces 
of  information  which  we  have  concerning  the  ancient 
Americans.  Without  it,  our  knowledge  of  the  Mayas 
would  be  a  hopeless  blank,  and  the  ruins  of  Palenque 
would  be  more  a  mystery  than  ever." — North  Americans 
of  Antiquity,  p.  204. 

In  Central  America  Votan  is  said  to  have  found  tribes 
of  the  lowest  degree  of  culture,  who  had  preceded  him  in 
the  occupancy  of  the  country.  They  are  mentioned  in  the 
old  traditions  as  the  Chichimecs,  and  are  said  to  have 
lived  entirely  by  the  chase.  Votan  apportioned  the  land 
among  his  followers,  who  were  known  as  Tzequiles 
("men  with  petty-coats"),  taught  the  savage  Chichimecs 
the  art  of  cooking  their  food,  and  instituted  among  them 
the  arts  of  civilized  life.  According  to  Quiche  chro 
nology,  the  empire  of  Xibalba  was  founded  in  955  B.  C. 
Its  capital  is  known  in  tradition  as  Nachan,  which  is 
almost  universally  conceded  to  be  Palenque. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  121 

"Nachan,  or  the  Town  of  Serpents,  of  which  the  ruins 
of  Palenque  exhibit  the  grandeur,  was  their  capital." — 
Nadaillac,  p.  263. 

"This  Nachan  is  unquestionably  identified  with  Pa 
lenque."- — Shorty  p.  205. 

"It  is  more  than  probable  that  Palenque  was  the  capi 
tal,  as  Ordonez  believes — the  Nachan  of  the  Votanic 
epoch." — Bancroft,  Vol.  V.,  p.  169. 

This,  however,  is  disputed  by  both  Charnay  and 
Thomas,  who  regard  Palenque  as  having  been  a  religious 
rather  than  a  civil  center.1 

The  empire  grew  so  rapidly  that  three  tributary  mon 
archies  were  founded  with  capitals  at  Tulan  in  Chiapas, 
\layapan  in  Yucatan,  and  Copan  in  Honduras,  and  the 
AT  hole  central  region  came  under  the  sway  of  the  scepters 
of  the  Votanic  monarchs.  But  after  a  number  of  cen 
turies  of  progress  this  empire  began  to  decline,  probably 
through  internal  revolts,  and  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
victorious  Nahuas  who  had  come  down  from  the  north. 
Bancroft  remarks:  "The  result  was  only  a  change  of 
dynasty  accompanied  by  the  introduction  of  some  new 
features  in  government  and  religious  rites.  The  old 
civilization  was  merged  in  the  new,  and  practically  lost 
its  identity;  so  much  so  that  all  the  many  nationalities 
that  in  later  times  traced  their  origin  to  this  central  region 
were  proud,  whatever  their  language,  to  claim  relation 
ship  with  the  successful  Nahuas,  whose  institutions  they 
had  adopted  and  whose  power  they  had  shared." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  234. 

From  the  valley  of  the  Usumacinta  colonies  went  out 
in  several  directions  to  people  the  surrounding  country. 
Some  went  to  Guatemala,  where  their  descendants  are 

1  "American   Archaeology,"   p.   285. 


122  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

known  still  as  the  Cakchiquels  and  Quiches.  After  the 
eleventh  century  Quiche  civilization  was  modified  by 
Toltec  contact  and  the  region  where  they  are  located  pre 
sents  two  different  sets  of  ruins,  an  older  and  one  more 
recent;  the  first  evidently  built  by  the  direct  descendants 
of  the  founders  of  Xibalba,  the  latter  by  those  descend 
ants  after  coming  in  contact  with  foreign  influences  and 
receiving  infusions  of  foreign  blood.  Those  who  settled 
Yucatan  are  known  as  the  Mayas  even  to  the  present  day. 
They  reached  their  golden  age  about  a  century  before  the 
invasion  of  Cortez,  but  were  followed  by  defeat  and  their 
kingdom  was  broken  up  into  a  number  of  petty  states. 
So  tenaciously  have  they  clung  to  their  ancient  language 
that,  in  many  localities,  it  is  still  spoken  in  its  original 
purity,  and  the  sons  of  the  conquerors  in  some  instances 
have  forgotten  their  Castilian  and  have  adopted  entirely 
the  tongue  of  the  sons  of  the  conquered.  The  Tzendals 
and  Tzotzils  also  claim  to  be  direct  descendants  of  the 
builders  of  Palenque. 

The  Nahuas,  the  second  people  to  exert  an  influ 
ence  and  establish  a  civilization  in  Mexico  and  Central 
America,  came  into  those  countries  from  the  north  or 
northwest.  "The  ancient  American  races  preserved  the 
tradition  of  distinct  migrations,  in  their  hieroglyphics  and 
pictographs.  According  to  these  traditions,  it  was  from 
a  country  situated  on  the  north  or  the  northwest  that  the 
Nahuas  came." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  272. 

It  is  very  evident  that  Nahuatl  immigrations  continued 
from  the  north  during  a  considerable  period  of  time,  be 
ginning  with  their  first  appearance  as  a  rival  of  Xibalba, 
and,  if  tradition  is  to  be  believed,  not  ending  until  the 
invasion  of  Mexico  by  the  Aztecs  and  kindred  tribes  as 
late  as  three  hundred  years  before  the  Conquest. 

Little  is  known  about  the  early  history  of  the  Nahuas 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  123 

in  Central  America.  Bancroft  says:  "The  Nahua  power 
grew  up  side  by  side  with  its  Xibalban  predecessor,  hav 
ing  its  capital  Tulan  apparently  in  Chiapas." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  233.  There  are  also  good  reasons  for 
believing  that  at  first  this  people  were  content  to  dwell 
quietly  and  peaceably  in  the  Usumacinta  region  and  that 
hostilities  were  not  provoked  until  after  they  had  suc 
ceeded  in  bringing  under  their  influence  a  number  of  wild 
tribes,  who,  reduced  to  a  life  of  civilization,  joined  their 
standard  in  the  struggle  to  overthrow  the  Votanic  mon- 
archs.  After  the  fall  of  Xibalba  but  little  is  heard  of  the 
Nahua  people  and  their  government  for  a  number  of  cen 
turies,  except  that  at  sometime  prior  to  the  fifth  century 
a  struggle  occurred,  following  which  there  was  a  general 
scattering  of  the  tribes. 

We  have  now  reached  the  sixth  century,  when  tradi 
tion  begins  to  assume  more  of  the  aspect  of  historical 
fact.  Bancroft  states:  "As  has  been  stated,  the  sixth 
century  is  the  most  remote  period  to  which  we  are  carried 
in  the  annals  of  Anahuac  by  traditions  sufficiently  definite 
to  be  considered  in  a  strict  sense  as  historic  records." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  157. 

With  this  century  we  have  the  advent  of  the  Toltecs 
into  Mexico.  They  were  a  Nahuan  tribe  and  the  most 
prominent  representative  of  that  people's  culture  of  which 
we  have  any  record.  The  unanimous  testimony  of  tradi 
tion  is  that  they  came  from  the  north,  from  the  mys 
terious  Hue  Hue  Tlapallan  (Old  Old  Red  Land),  the 
nursery  of  the  Nahua  people,  which  has  been  variously 
located.  Briart  locates  it  near  Lake  Tulare  in  California ; 
Becker,  on  the  Rio  Colorado;  and  Baldwin,  Short  and 
Foster  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  But  Bancroft,  on  the 
contrary,  attempts  to  find  this  country  in  the  Usumacinta 
region  and  supposes  that  the  Toltecs  were  a  fragment  of 


124  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

that  people  which  overthrew  Xibalba.  Notwithstanding 
his  views,  however,  he  admits  the  prevalence  of  the  tradi 
tion,  that  the  Toltecs  came  from  the  north,  among  the 
Aztecs  when  the  Spaniards  first  came  in  contact  with 
them.  "It  is  not  probable,"  he  says,  "that  this  idea  of  a 
northern  origin  was  a  pure  invention  of  the  Spaniards ; 
they  doubtless  found  among  the  Aztecs  with  whom  they 
came  in  contact  what  seemed  to  them  a  prevalent  popular 
notion  that  the  ancestors  of  the  race  came  from  the 
north." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  217. 

Baldwin  and  Foster,  in  their  works,  "Ancient  Amer 
ica"  and  "Prehistoric  Races  of  the  United  States,"  begin 
the  Toltec  period  in  Mexico  at  about  1000  B.  C.,  instead 
of  in  the  sixth  century  A.  D.,  confounding  the  date  of 
their  rise  with  the  traditional  date  of  the  founding  of 
Palenque,  and,  possibly,  themselves  with  the  Nahua  tribes 
who  had  preceded  them.  Among  those  who  have  dated 
the  beginning  of  the  Toltec  supremacy  in  Mexico  from 
the  sixth  or  seventh  century  A.  D.  are  Clavigero,  Gal- 
latin,  Humboldt,  Prescott,  Squier,  Morton,  Nott  and 
Gliddon,  Bancroft,  Short,  Bradford,  Stephens,  Charnay, 
Nadaillac  and  Thomas.  This  latter  view  is  more  con 
sistent  with  the  probabilities,  for  the  theory  is  now  gener 
ally  accepted  that  fifteen  hundred  years  are  sufficient  to 
cover  the  building  of  all  those  cities  of  both  Central 
America  and  Mexico  whose  ruins  still  remain. 

Brinton  denies  that  the  Toltecs,  as  they  are.  com 
monly  described,  ever  existed.  He  says :  "The  Toltecs 
may  have  been  one  of  the  early  and  unimportant  gentes 
of  the  Azteca,  but  even  this  is  doubtful.  The  term  was 
properly  applied  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  small  town  of 
Tula,  north  of  the  valley  of  Mexico." — The  American 
Race,  p.  129. 

Elsewhere  he  says  of  them:  "One  of  their" — Nahua's 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  125 

— "small  bands,  the  Toltecs,  became  invested  in  later  leg 
ends  with  the  halo  of  heroes  and  magicians,  and  were 
mythically  represented  as  the  founders  of  that  civiliza 
tion  which  it  is  probable  they  largely  borrowed  in  germ 
from  tribes  in  the  south  of  Mexico.  Such  as  it  was, 
they  readily  assimilated  and  increased  it,  and  their  dis 
tant  colonies  in  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica  carried  it 
with  them  to  these  remote  points." — Myths  of  the  New 
World,  p.  42. 

It  is  possible  that  the  Nahua  tribes  from  the  north, 
with  a  degree  of  culture  but  little  above  that  of  the  Chata 
Muskoki  tribes,  but  with  progressive  dispositions,  coming 
in  contact  with  the  Maya  civilization  in  Central  America, 
enhanced  their  own  culture  and  developed  it  with  a  num 
ber  of  resemblances  to  the  Mayan,  but  in  a  different 
channel;  and  that  the  Toltecs  did  not  originate  all  the 
features  of  the  civilization  commonly  ascribed  to  them, 
but,  infusing  new  life  into  that  which  had  been  derived 
in  part  from  Xibalba  or  its  fragments  by  the  Nahua  tribes 
who  had  preceded  them,  developed  it  into  that  enjoyed  by 
the  people  of  Anahuac  between  the  sixth  and  eleventh 
centuries  of  our  era. 

Stephens  and  Charnay  go  to  the  opposite  extreme  of 
denying  any  culture  in  Central  America  at  all  but  the 
Toltecan.  Their  theory  is  that  the  cities  commonly- 
ascribed  to  the  ancient  Mayas  were  built  by  that  people 
after  their  career  in  Mexico.  Charnay  says:  "Granted 
their  building  genius,  seeing  that  both  the  architecture 
and  the  decorations  of  the  edifices  correspond  to  the  de 
scriptions  left  by  historians  respecting  Toltec  palaces  and 
temples  of  the  Uplands,  we  are  in  a  position  to  affirm  that 
there  was  no  other  civilization  in  Central  America  except 
the  Toltec  civilization,  and  that,  if  another  existed,  our 
having  met  with  no  trace  of  it  gives  us  the  right  to  deny 


126  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

it  altogether." — The  Ancient  Cities  of  the  New  World, 
p.  278. 

The  Toltecs  ruled  in  Mexico  for  five  hundred  years, 
to  the  eleventh  century,  when  they  were  overcome  by  the 
Chichimecs,  a  people  of  the  same  Nahua  stock.  The 
Toltec  empire  was  ruled  by  a  confederacy  of  three  cities, 
Culhuacan,  Otompan  and  Tollan,  each  having  its  turn  as 
the  leading  power ;  the  last  being  renowned  for  its  culture 
and  splendor,  the  first  surviving  in  name  the  subsequent 
changes  to  the  Conquest.  On  the  nature  of  the  Toltec 
overthrow  Bancroft  remarks:  "The  Toltec  downfall  was 
the  overthrow  of  a  dynasty,  not  the  destruction  of  a  peo 
ple."—  Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  288. 

After  their  fall  the  great  mass  of  the  Toltec  people 
quietly  submitted  to  their  successors,  while  the  nobles, 
with  their  followers,  fled  southward,  taking  refuge  among 
the  Miztecs  and  Zapotecs  of  Oajaca  and  influencing  the 
culture  of  the  Quiches  of  Guatemala.  The  Chichimecs 
were,  in  turn,  overcome  by  the  Aztecs,  who  continued 
their  rule  to  the  invasion  of  Cortez  and  the  fall  of 
Montezuma. 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  outline  of  the  ancient  history  of 
Central  America  and  Mexico,  taken  from  the  traditions 
of  those  countries,  with  the  opinions  and  explanations  of 
modern  writers  included.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that 
much  that  is  recorded  is  a  statement  of  fact  and  truly 
historical,  while  much  is  purely  mythical. 

The  Peruvians. 

Trustworthy  information  does  not  carry  us  back  in 
the  history  of  Peru  further  than  a  few  centuries  before 
the  conquest  by  Pizarro.  What  we  have  has  been  ob 
tained  chiefly  from  the  works  of  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega 
and  Montesinos,  the  former  a  descendant,  through  his 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  127 

mother,  of  the  Incas,  and  whose  chief  aim  seems  to  be 
to  glorify  his  people;  and  the  latter  a  Spaniard  whose 
work  is  of  doubtful  importance. 

According  to  Montesinos,  Peruvian  history  is  to  be 
divided  into  two  epochs :  the  first  lasting  from  the  dawn 
of  civilization  to  the  first  or  second  century  of  our  era; 
the  second,,  from  1021  A.  D.,  when  the  empire  was  recon 
structed  under  the  first  Inca,  to  the  Conquest. 

Ancient  Peru  was  more  extensive  than  the  present, 
and  comprised,  along  with  what  is  now  included  within 
its  boundaries,  the  country  of  Ecuador  and  parts  of  Bo 
livia,  Chili  and  Argentina,  a  territory  three  thousand 
miles  long  by  four  hundred  broad.  Here  are  to  be  found 
ruins  noted  for  their  massiveness ;  long,  well-paved 
roads ;  aqueducts,  and  other  evidences  of  a  taste  and 
mechanical  skill  considerably  beyond  the  ordinary  sav 
age.  Marquis  Nadaillac  is  pleased  to  call  the  Peruvian 
the  "most  highly  civilized  empire  of  the  two  Americas," 
and  indeed,  in  some  respects,  at  the  time  of  the  Con 
quest,  it  surpassed  even  that  of  Montezuma.  The  Peru 
vians  were  "equally  advanced  in  the  various  mechanical 
and  fine  arts,"  says  Bancroft ;  "except  sculpture  and 
architectural  decoration,  they  lived  under  as  perfect  a 
system  of  government  and  rendered  homage  to  less 
bloodthirsty  gods." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  792. 

The  Incan  capital,  Cuzco,  from  cosca,  Peruvian  for 
"heaps,"  was  built  upon  the  foundations  of  a  more 
ancient  city  which  dated  back  to  an  earlier  period,  and 
authorities  are  pretty  well  agreed  that  Peruvian  history 
is  to  be  divided  into  at  least  two  epochs. 

"It  is  now  agreed  that  the  Peruvian  antiquities  repre 
sent  two  distinct  periods  in  the  ancient  history  of  the 
country,  one  being  much  older  than  the  other." — Ancient 
America,  p.  226, 


128  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

"The  most  remarkable  monuments  of  antiquity  are 
considered  the  works  of  a  people  preceding  that  found 
by  Pizarro  in  possession  of  the  country,  and  bearing  very 
much  the  same  relation  to  the  subjects  of  the  Incas  as 
the  ancient  Mayas  bore  to  the  Quiches  of  Guatemala,  or 
perhaps  the  Toltecs  to  the  Aztecs." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
IV.,  p.  791. 

"We  may  reasonably  conclude  that  there  existed  in 
the  country  a  race  advanced  in  civilization  before  the 
time  of  the  Incas;  and,  in  conformity  with  nearly  every 
tradition,  we  may  derive  this  race  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Lake  Titicaca;  a  conclusion  strongly  confirmed  by  the 
imposing  architectural  remains  which  still  endure,  after 
the  lapse  of  so  many  years  on  its  borders." — Conquest  of 
Peru,  Vol.  I:,  p.  7. 

"It  is  certain  that  before  the  time  of  Manco  Capac" 
— the  first  Inca — "the  inhabitants  of  the  country  were  by 
no  means  plunged  in  barbarism.  The  Quichua  culture 
had  a  past,  of  which  the  theocratic  and  social  organiza 
tion  founded  by  the  first  Inca  was  but  a  development. 
Numerous  buildings  are  undoubtedly  earlier  than  the 
Incas,  at  least  than  those  of  whom  authentic  history  has 
preserved  an  account." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  389. 

Just  when  this  first  period  began  no  one  can  surely 
tell,  but  Montesinos  begins  it  five  hundred  years  after 
the  deluge,  when  its  first  inhabitants,  he  says,  "flowed  in 
abundance  towards  the  valley  of  Cuzco,  conducted  by 
four  brothers."  Baldwin  attaches  some  probability  to 
this  myth  and  says :  "He  discards  the  wonder-stories  told 
of  Manco  Capac  and  Mama  Oello,  and  gives  the  Peru 
vian  nation  a  beginning  which  is,  at  least,  not  incredible. 
It  was  originated,  he  says,  by  a  people  led  by  four  broth 
ers,  who  settled  in  the  valley  of  Cuzco,  and  developed 
civilization  there  in  a  very  human  way.  The  youngest 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  129 

of  these  brothers  assumed  supreme  authority,  and  became 
the  first  of  a  long  line  cf  sovereigns." — Ancient  America, 
p.  264. 

This  period,  according  to  our  Spanish  author,  lasted 
till  the  first  or  second  century  of  our  era,  during  which, 
he  says,  sixty-four  sovereigns  reigned.  For  a  thousand 
years  after  its  close  the  country  was  broken  up  into  a 
number  of  petty  states  until  1021  A.  D.,  when  the  first 
Inca  began  to  rule.  The  Incas  ruled  until  the  Conquest, 
when  Atahualpa,  the  last,  was  cruelly  put  to  death  by 
Pizarro.  There  were  twelve  or  thirteen  of  these  sov 
ereigns  whose  names  have  been  preserved  in  the  lists  of 
Garcilasso  and  Montesinos.  Dr.  Brinton  unhesitatingly 
denounces  the  list  of  Montesinos  as  spurious.  He  says: 
"Historians  are  agreed  that  the  long  lists  of  Incas  in  the 
pages  of  Montesinos,  extending  about  two  thousand 
years  anterior  to  the  Conquest,  are  spurious,  due  to  the 
imagination  or  the  easy  credulity  of  that  writer." — 
Essays  of  an  Americanist,  p.  23. 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  outline  of  the  aboriginal  history 
of  America  as  given  in  the  traditions.  That  some  of  it 
is  untrustworthy  I  grant,  but  that  much  of  it  is  to  be 
depended  upon  is  proved  by  the  corroboratory  evidences 
from  the  languages  and  remains.  If  the  reader  will  com 
pare  this  outline  with  the  historical  outline  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  as  given  in  Chapter  I.,  he  will  find  but  few 
points  of  agreement  between  the  two. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL    KNOWLEDGE    IN    1830. 

I  pass  now  to  the  Mormon  claim  that  prior  to  the 
year  1830,  in  which  the  Book  of  Mormon  came  out  and 
the  Mormon  Church  was  organized,  there  was  not 
enough  known  of  the  antiquities  of  America  to  enable 
some  one  to  get  up  such  a  story  as  the  Book  of  Mormon. 


130  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

On  this  point  Elder  H.  A.  Stebbins  writes :  "But  many 
people  innocently  suppose  that  numerous  books  were  in 
existence  before  1830,  from  which  it  would  have  been 
comparatively  easy  for  something  to  have  been  written 
as  a  work  of  fiction,  just  as  Mr.  Clark  Braden  boldly  and 
falsely  stated  about  the  work  of  Josiah  Priest.  Desiring 
to  know  for  myself  how  this  was,  I  have  either  examined 
the  books  themselves  or  the  encyclopedia  accounts  of 
them  and  their  authors,  and  the  result  is  that  of  over 
twenty  chief  writers  upon  American  antiquities  only  one 
book  is  proven  to  have  been  published  in  the  English  lan 
guage  prior  to  the  copyrighting  of  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
and  that  is  the  work  of  Captain  Del  Rio,  which  was  pub 
lished  in  London  in  1822." — Book  of  Mormon  Lectures, 
p.  18. 

In  a  foot-note  on  the  same  page  he  adds :  "Probably 
now  two  with  the  work  of  Helen  Maria  Williams,  if  hers 
was  published  before  1830."  Her  work,  a  translation  of 
Humboldt,  was  printed  in  1814.  (Nadaillac's  "Prehis 
toric  America,"  p.  284,  foot-note.) 

In  his  tract,  "Modern  Knowledge  of  the  Antiquities 
of  America,"  p.  4,  Mr.  Stebbins  says  further:  "And  to 
those,  whether  they  are  in  the  church  or  out  of  it,  who 
have  gathered  the  idea  that  for  sometime  before  the  pub 
lication  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  there  was  world-wide 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  ruined  cities  of  Central 
America,  we  say  that  they  have  certainly  obtained  a  very 
wrong  impression,  one  that  is  contrary  to  the  truth.  And 
that  the  opposers  are  either  very  deficient  in  their  educa 
tion  upon  this  point,  or  else  they  purposely  leave  their 
readers  and  hearers  in  the  dark  as  to  the  real  facts,  which, 
when  stated,  will  make  the  whole  subject  clear  to  all  who 
desire  the  truth,  and  only  the  truth." 

If  this  gentleman  has  examined  only  a  few  more  than 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  131 

twenty  of  the  chief  works  on  American  antiquities,  or 
the  encyclopedia  accounts  of  them,  his  research  has  cer 
tainly  not  been  extensive,  and  this  accounts  for  his  con 
clusion,  and  possibly  what  he  says  about  the  education  of 
others  may  apply  to  himself.  While  it  is  not  claimed  that 
there  was  world-wide  knowledge,  using  this  term  in  its 
broadest  sense,  of  the  ruined  cities  of  Central  America  in 
1830,  it  is  claimed,  and  can  be  proved,  that  there  was 
enougih  known  of  them  before  that  date  to  have  enabled 
some  one  to  get  up  just  such  a  story  as  the  Book  of 
Mormon.  The  fact  is  that  there  were  a  considerable 
number  of  works  on  science,  travel  and  adventure  pub 
lished  in  the  English  language  before  1830  which  con 
tained  descriptions  of  the  ruined  cities  of  Mexico,  Cen 
tral  America  and  Peru.  Some  of  these  were  translations 
of  works  in  French  and  Spanish ;  others  were  works  by 
English  and  American  authors.  The  following  are  the 
names  of  a  number  of  works  in  the  English  language 
which,  before  1830,  described  the  antiquities  of  Central 
America  and  Mexico.  They  are  either  quoted  from  or 
referred  to  in  the  writings  of  Bancroft,  Prescott  and 
other  later  writers : 

"Conquest  of  Mexico,"  De  Solis,  London,  1735. 

"History  of  America,"  Herrera,  London,  1740. 

"History  of  America,"  Robertson,  London,  1777. 

"Origin  of  the  Tribes  and  Nations  of  America,"  Bar 
ton,  Philadelphia,  1797. 

"Account  of  the  Settlement  of  Honduras,"  Hender 
son,  London,  1811. 

"Decades,"  Peter  Martyr,  London,  1812. 

"Researches,"  Humboldt,  London,  1814. 

"Researches  in  America,"  McCulloh,  Baltimore,  1817. 

"Spanish  America,"  Bonneycastle,  London,  1818. 

"Travels  in  North  America,"  Bingley,  London,  1821. 


132  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

"Description  of  an  Ancient  City,"  Del  Rio,  London, 
1822. 

"Six  Months'  Residence  in  Mexico,"  Bullock,  Lon 
don,  1823. 

"History  of  Guatemala,"  Juarros,  London,  1824. 

"History  of  Mexico,"  Mill,  London,  1824. 

"Notes  on  Mexico,"  Poinsett,  London,  1825. 

"Historical  Researches,"  Ranking,  London,  1827. 

"Journal,"  Lyon,  London,  1828. 

"Mexico  Illustrated,"  Beaufoy,  London,  1828. 

"Mexico  in  1827,"  Ward,  London,  1828. 

While  most  of  these  writers  have  not  written  directly 
upon  the  subject  of  American  antiquities,  they  have  all 
mentioned,  and  some  have  quite  fully  described,  the 
monuments  of  Mexico  and  Central  America.  Thus 
Copan,  which  was  discovered  in  the  year  1576,  and 
which  was  very  accurately  described  by  the  Spanish 
licentiate,  Palacios,  was  given  a  lengthy  notice  in  the 
"History  of  Guatemala,"  by  Juarros.  This  same  author 
also  described  other  ruins  throughout  Guatemala.  Her- 
rera  and  Peter  Martyr  both  gave  descriptions  of  the 
Maya  structures  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Yucatan.  Mitla, 
the  ancient  capital  of  Oajaca,  was  referred  to  by  Bonney- 
castle  and  Mill.  An  account  of  Papantla  was  given  by 
Bingley.  Certain  mounds  in  Panuco  were  mentioned  by 
Lyon.  There  are  a  number  of  early  descriptions  of  Cho- 
lula  given  in  the  works  of  Robertson,  Poinsett,  Bullock, 
Ward,  Beaufoy,  Mill  and  McCulloh.  And  the  antiquities 
of  Mexico  were  written  about  by  Robertson,  Beaufoy, 
Bonneycastle,  Lyon,  Poinsett,  McCullch  and  Ranking. 
Even  Palenque,  which  Mr.  Stebbins,  on  the  strength  of 
a  statement  from  Stephens,  declares  could  net  have  been 
known  of  in  time  for  Joseph  Smith  to  have  used  the 
knowledge  in  "fabricating  the  Book  of  Mormon,"  was 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  133 

written  about  by  at  least  three  English  authors,  if  Ban 
croft  has  made  no  mistake,  before  the  copyrighting  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon  in  1829.  These  authors  are  Juar- 
rcs,  Bullock  and  McCulloh,  the  last  devoting  several 
pages  of  his  "Researches  in  America"  to  its  description.1 

On  the  antiquities  of  Peru,  before  1830,  we  have  such 
works  as  the  "Naturall  and  Morall  Historic  of  the  East 
and  West  Indies,"  London,  1604,  by  Acosta;  "History 
of  America,"  London,  1777,  by  Robertson;  and  "Voyage 
to  South  America,"  London,  1806,  by  Ulloa.  On  Rob 
ertson's  work  Justin  Windsor,  in  his  "Narrative  and 
Critical  History  of  America,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  269,  says :  "Rob 
ertson's  excellent  view  of  the  story  of  the  Incas  in  his 
'History  of  America'  was  for  many  years  the  sole  source 
of  information  on  the  subject  for  the  general  English 
public." 

The  antiquities  of  the  Mound  Builders  were  also  well 
known  of,  and  extensively  written  upon,  a  number  of 
years  before  the  Book  of  Mormon  appeared.  The  con 
troversy  over  the  question  of  the  nationality  of  the 
Mound  Builders  began  as  early  as  1803.  The  American 
Antiquarian  Society  was  organized  at  Worcester,  Mass., 
in  1812,  and  for  it  Caleb  Atwater  surveyed  the. aboriginal 
works  at  Circleville,  Ohio,  in  :8i9.2  And  Lewis  Cass 
wrote  of  the  mounds  in  the  North  American  Reviezv  for 
January,  1826.  The  following  works  on  the  antiquities 
of  the  United  States  were  extant  before  1830: 

"History  of  Louisiana,"  Du  Pratz,  London,  1763. 

1  "Native   Races,"   Vol.   IV.,   p.   294,   footnote.      Since   writing  the   above 
I   have   run  across  the   following  statement   in  Justin   Windsor's   "Narrative 
and    Critical    History    of    America,"    Vol.    I.,    p.    169:    "The    earliest    general 
account  of  these  ancient  peoples" — of  Mexico  and  Central  America — "which 
we  have  in  English  is  in  the  'History  of  America,'  by  William  Robertson," 
This  work  was  published  in  the  year  1777. 

2  "The   Mound   Builders,"  p.  3. 


134  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

"Travels,"  Bartram,  London,  1766. 

"History  of  Florida,"  Romans,  1775. 

"North  American  Indians,"  Adair,  London,  1775. 

"Travels,"  Carver,  1776. 

"Notes  on  Virginia,"  Jefferson,  Boston,  1802. 

"Travels,"  Lewis  and  Clark,  London,  1814. 

"Views  of  Louisiana,"  Breckinridge,  Pittsburg,  1814. 

"Researches  in  America,"  McCulloh,  Baltimore,  1817. 

"Travels  in  Arkansas,"  Nuttal,  1821. 

"Gazetteer  for  Illinois  and  Missouri,"  Beck,  1821. 

"Natural  and  Aboriginal  History  Tennessee,"  Hey- 
wood,  Nashville,  1823. 

In  addition  to  these,  we  have  such  other  writers  as 
Timberlake,  Hunter,  Barton,  Colden,  Loskiel,  Stoddard 
and  Charlevoix,  who  wrote,  more  or  less  extensively,  on 
the  subjects  of  antiquities  and  Indian  life  before  I83O.1 

The  lists  of  books  just  given  prove  that  there  was 
ample  information  before  1830  for  some  one  to  get  up 
just  such  a  story  as  the  Book  of  Mormon.  The  fact  is 
that  Adair's  "American  Indians,"  Robertson's  "History 
of  America"  and  Barton's  "Origin  of  the  Tribes  and 
Nations  of  America"  would  have  furnished  Solomon 
Spaulding,  long  before  1812,  all  the  information  neces 
sary  to  write  out  its  outline  as  claimed. 

Not  only  was  there  a  considerable  number  of  works 
on  American  antiquities  extant  before  1830,  but  the  basic 
theories  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  were  those  held  by  their 
authors  and  were  popular  at  that  time. 

i.  According  to  the  Book  of  Mormon  the  arts,  habits, 
customs,  language  and  religion  of  ancient  America  were 

1  Justin  Windsor,  "Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,"  Vol. 
I.,  p.  398,  says  of  Barton's  opinion  on  the  nationality  of  the  Mound 
Builders:  "B.  S.  Barton,  in  'Observations  in  Some  Parts  of  Natural 
History'  (London,  1787),  credits  the  Toltecs  with  building  them" — the 
mounds — "whom  he  considered  the  descendants  of  the  Danes." 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  135 

brought  from  the  Old  World.  This  opinion  was  held  by 
the  great  majority  of  Americanists  at  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century,  one  deriving  American  culture  from 
China,  another  from  Atlantis,  another  from  Polynesia, 
and  another  from  Palestine. 

2.  The  book  claims  that  the  first  inhabitants  of  this 
continent  came  direct  from  the  Tower  of  Babel.     A  be 
lief  that  was  shared  in  by  such  early  writers  as  Ulloa, 
Villagutierre,  Torquemada,  L'Estrange,  Thompson  and 
others. 

3.  The  book  declares  that  the  American  Indians  are 
descendants  of  the  children  of  Israel.     Of  earlier  writers 
who    held   this    view    may    be    mentioned    Thorowgood, 
Penn,  Ben  Ezra,  Beatty,  Edwards,  Stiles,  Smith,  Boudi- 
not,  Adair,  Mayhew  and  Eliot.     In  1873  Foster  declared 
that  this  theory  was  "profoundly  entertained  a  century 
ago." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  323. 

4.  The  book  tells  us  further  that  the  valleys  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  were  inhabited  in  ancient  times 
by   highly   civilized   peoples,    distinct    from    the    Ameri 
can  Indians.     This  theory  was  not  new  in  1830,  having 
been   advanced  about  the  beginning  of  the  century  by 
Rev.  Thaddeus  M.  Harris,  and  was  held  at  that  time  by 
the  greater  number  of  American  archaeologists. 

5.  After  the  defeat  of  the  Nephites  at  Hill  Cumorah 
we   are   told   that   their    remnant    fled   into    the    "south 
countries."     Heckewelder,  as  we  have  seen,  gave  to  the 
world  in  1819  a  Delaware  tradition  according  to  which 
the  Tallegwi,  the  Ohio  mound  builders,  after  their  defeat 
by  the  combined  forces  of  the  Lenape  and  Hurons,  also 
fled  southward. 

6.  The  book  further  declares  that  two  distinct,  civil 
ized  peoples,  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites,  dwelt,  in  ancient 
times,  in   Central   America   and   Mexico.      Long  before 


136  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

1830  the  ethnical  distinction  between  the  Mayas  and  Na- 
huas  had  been  observed. 

7.  The  Jaredites,  it  is  claimed,  were  all  exterminated, 
with  the  exception  of  two  individuals.     The  theory  of 
"extinct,"  "vanished"  and  "lost"  races  was  held  long  be 
fore  it  entered  into  the  minds  of  Spaulding,  Rigdon  and 
Smith. 

8.  The   belief   that   the    Christian   religion   had   been 
preached  in  America,  as  made  in  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
was  first  advocated  by  many  of  the  Spanish  priests  of 
Mexico,  who   saw   in  the   Aztec  god,   Quetzalcoatl,   the 
apostle  Thomas,  who,  they  thought,  preached  in  America 
during  the  first  century  of  our  era. 

9.  Smith's   claim   that   he    found   the   plates   in   Hill 
Cumorah  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  Stockbridge 
Indian  tradition,  obtained  by  Dr.  West  and  published  in 
Boudinot's  Star  in  the  West  in  1816,  according  to  which 
"their  fathers  were  once  in  possession  of  a  'Sacred  Book' 
which  was  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation 
and  at  last  hid  in  the  earth." 

These  theories  have  pretty  much  all  been  disproved 
and  given  up.  Americanists  no  longer  look  abroad  for 
the  origin  of  American  culture,  but  have  come  to  con 
sider  it  as  purely  American,  developed  here  and  possess 
ing  no  marks  by  which  it  may  be  traced  to  the  Old 
World.  No  ethnologists  of  note  any  longer  hold  to  the 
opinion  that  the  American  Indians  are  descendants  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  having  fully  satisfied  themselves  that 
the  analogies  cited  by  Adair  are  insufficient  to  establish 
any  such  relationship.  The  highly  civilized  Mound 
Builders  have  also  passed  under  the  investigations  of  the 
Smithsonian  and  other  institutions,  and  in  their  place  we 
have  a  people  who  had  reached  only  the  "upper  status 
of  savagery."  The  Tallegwi,  it  is  now  known,  were  not 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  137 

the  Nephites  fleeing  southward  from  Cumorah,  but  were 
only  the  Cherokees  who  were  driven  from  their  ancient 
seats  north  of  the  Ohio  River  by  the  combined  forces  of 
the  Lenapes  and  Hurons,  and  who  fled  southward  into 
that  country  which  they  inhabited  at  the  coming  of  the 
whites.  The  theory  of  "extinct,"  "vanished"  and  "lost" 
races,  made  so  prominent  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  has 
given  place  to  the  more  sober  presumption  that  the  build 
ers  of  the  ancient  American  cities  were  only  those  races 
who  were  found  here  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery,  and 
the  ancestors  of  existing  native  tribes.  And  Quetzal- 
coatl  turns  out  to  be  neither  St.  Thomas  nor  Jesus  Christ, 
but  only  the  god  of  the  air  in  Aztec  mythology. 

If  he  is  but  aware  of  it,  the  anti-Mormon  polemic  has, 
in  the  data  acquired  by  our  archaeologists,  a  mass  of 
evidence  which,  if  rightly  used,  will  completely  overturn 
the  strongholds  of  Mormonism.  The  trend  of  research 
has  not  been,  as  Mormon  writers  try  to  make  it  appear, 
in  the  direction  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  but  away  from 
it,  as  will  be  observed  by  any  one  who  will  read  the 
up-to-date  works  on  the  subject.  It  is  a  noticeable  fact 
that  the  defenders  of  the  book  appeal  for  material  with 
which  to  defend  their  claims  far  more  often  to  works 
written  by  the  older  authors  than  they  do  to  works 
written  later.  There  seems  to  be  a  decided  partiality  for 
Adair,  Boudinot  and  Priest,  although  the  latest  of  these, 
Priest,  wrote  over  seventy  years  ago.  These,  on  the 
question  of  the  relationship  of  the  Indians  to  the  Jews, 
ire  their  standard  authors.  On  the  subject  of  the  Mound 
Builders,  their  chief  authority  is  Baldwin's  "Ancient 
America,"  a  work  published  in  1871,  and  before  the  more 
critical  study  of  the  works  of  this  people  had  been  made. 
Baldwin's  theory,  under  later  investigation,  has  been 
completely  demolished,  and  to-day  such  writers  as  Pow- 


i38  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

ell,  Holmes,  Henshaw,  Thomas,  Brinton,  Fowke,  Moore- 
head,  Carrj  Shaler  and  Dellenbaugh  speak  of  the  Mound 
Builders,  not  as  a  vanished  race,  but  as  those  very  Indian 
tribes  who  inhabited  the  mound  region  at  the  coming  of 
the  whites.  Of  course  such  facts  are  carefully  concealed 
by  Mormon  writers  from  the  eyes  of  their  readers,  they 
writing  as  though  all  discoveries  were  corroboratory  of 
their  claims.  They  are  further  to  be  charged  with  being 
lovers  of  the  fanciful,  the  marvelous,  the  sensational  and 
the  impossible.  Their  books  are  full  of  the  accounts  of 
"wonderful  finds,"  sensational  newspaper  reports  and  the 
descriptions  of  tablets  and  plates  acknowledged  to  be 
frauds  by  all  good  archaeologists.  These  are  dealt  out  to 
a  gullible  public  without  question,  and  are  received  by  a 
certain  class  in  the  same  way.  In  one  of  their  recent 
works  appears,  unquestioned,  a  newspaper  report  of  "A 
Prehistoric  Town  125  Feet  Under  the  Earth." ]  Sev 
eral  others  contain  long  descriptions  of  the  well-known 
frauds,  the  "Kinderhook  Plates"  and  the  "Newark  Tab 
let."  The  more  the  antiquities  of  America  are  studied, 
the  less  of  the  marvelous  appears,  and  the  reader  may 
justly  look  with  suspicion  upon  every  report  that  ascribes 
to  the  ancient  Americans  things  exceedingly  extraordi 
nary. 


"Parsons'  Text-book,"  p.   5. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  139 


CHAPTER    III. 

Were  the  Ancient  Americans  of  the  White  Race?— White  In 
dians — White  and  Bearded  Men — Light-haired  Mummies — 
American  Craniology. 

The  origin  of  the  people  of  America  and  of  their 
culture  are  questions  on  which  there  has  been  no  small 
amount  of  speculation,  and  antiquarians,  in  respect  to 
their  theories,  are  to  be  divided  into  three  classes:  (i) 
Those  who  hold  that  both  the  people  and  their  culture 
were  exotic.  (2)  Those  who  hold  that  both  were  indig 
enous.  And  (3)  those  who  hold  that  the  people  were  of 
exotic  origin,  but  who  claim  that  their  culture  was  purely 
an  American  product  and  not  derived  from  any  nation  or 
nations  whatever  of  the  Old  World. 

To  the  first  class  belong  such  writers  as  Ranking, 
Lang,  Jones,  Delafield  and  Adair,  who  advocated, 
respectively,  the  descent,  either  in  whole  or  in  part,  of 
the  Americans  from  the  Mongolians,  Polynesians,  Phoe 
nicians,  Egyptians  and  Israelites ;  to  the  second,  such 
writers  as  Morton,  Nott  and  Gliddon,  and  others  who 
deny  the  unity  of  the  human  species ;  and  to  the  third, 
such  of  our  later  writers  as  Brinton,  Powell  and  Marquis 
Nadaillac. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  teaches  that  both  the  people 
and  the  culture  of  ancient  America  came  from  the  Old 
World.  The  Jaredites,  coming  from  the  Tower  of  Babel 
about  twenty-two  centuries  B.  C,  landed  upon  the  east 
coast  of  Central  America,  and  for  sixteen  hundred  years 
held  sway  over  a  territory  which,  at  the  wind-up  of  their 
career,  extended  from  Honduras  on  the  south  to  the 
Great  Lakes  on  the  north,  and  east  and  west  from  ocean 


I4o  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

to  ocean ;  and  the  Nephites,  immigrating  from  Jerusalem 
about  600  B.  C,  and  landing  upon  the  coast  of  Chili,  by 
gradual  movements  spread  northward,  until,  at  the  close 
cf  their  national  existence  in  385  A.  D.,  they  occupied 
both  Americas. 

These  peoples,  it  is  claimed,  were  the  authors  of  those 
remarkable  cities  whose  ruins  still  remain  in  Peru,  Cen 
tral  America  and  Mexico.  "And  according  to  both  the 
Book  of  Mormon  and  science,"  says  Elder  Stebbins,  "it 
was  not  the  red  man  who  built  cities  and  erected  palaces. 
It  was  a  nobler  race,  and  they  remained  fair  until  they 
amalgamated  with  the  Lamanites  and  were  brought  un 
der  the  same  cursing." — Lectures,  p.  177. 

With  the  history  of  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites  the 
book  also  gives  us  what  its  defenders  claim  to  be  the 
only  true  account  of  the  origin  of  the  red  race  and  also 
its  history  for  a  thousand  years  from  its  beginning.  Ac 
cording  to  this  account,  the  American  is  an  offshoot  of 
the  Semitic  branch  of  the  Caucasian  race,  which,  by  a 
miracle,  was  transformed  in  color  from  white  to  coppery, 
the  cause  of  this  wonderful  transformation  being  a 
willful  and  persistent  disobedience  to  the  commands  of 
God. 

Nephi  gives  the  following  account  of  this  miraculous 
change :  "And  it  came  to  pass  that  I,  Nephi,  did  cause 
my  people  to  be  industrious,  and  to  labor  with  their 
hands.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  they  would  that  I 
should  be  their  king.  But  I,  Nephi,  was  desirous  that 
they  should  have  no  king;  nevertheless,  I  did  for  them 
according  to  that  which  was  in  my  power.  And,  behold, 
the  words  of  the  Lord  had  been  fulfilled  unto  my  breth 
ren,  which  he  spake  concerning  them,  that  I  should  be 
their  ruler  and  their  teacher ;  wherefore,  I  had  been  their 
ruler  and  their  teacher,  according  to  the  commandments 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  141 

of  the  Lord,  until  the  time  they  sought  to  take  away  my 
life.  Wherefore,  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  fulfilled 
which  he  spake  unto  me,  saying:  That  inasmuch  as  they 
will  not  hearken  unto  thy  word,  they  shall  be  cut  off 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  And  behold,  they  were 
cut  off  from  his  presence.  And  he  had  caused  the  curs 
ing  to  come  upon  them,  yea,  even  a  sore  cursing,  because 
of  their  iniquity.  For,  behold,  they  had  hardened  their 
hearts  against  him,  that  they  had  become  like  unto  a 
flint.  Wherefore,  as  they  were  white,  and  exceeding 
fair  and  delightsome,  that  they  might  not  be  enticing 
unto  my  people,  the  Lord  God  did  cause  a  skin  of  black 
ness  to  come  upon  them.  And  thus  saith  the  Lord  God, 
I  will  cause  that  they  shall  be  loathsome  unto  thy  people, 
save  they  shall  repent  of  their  iniquities.  And  cursed 
shall  be  the  seed  of  him  that  mixeth  with  their  seed :  for 
they  shall  be  cursed  even  with  the  same  cursing.  And 
the  Lord  spake  it,  and  it  was  done.  And  because  of 
their  cursing  which  was  upon  them,  they  did  become  an 
idle  people,  full  of  mischief  and  subtlety,  and  did  seek 
in.  the  wilderness  for  beasts  of  prey." — 2  Nephi  4:  4. 

This,  then,  is  the  origin  of  the  American  Indians,  if 
the  Book  of  Mormon  is  true. 

Without  further  introductory  remarks  I  pass  imme 
diately  to  a  consideration  of  the  various  lines  of  evidence 
— physiological,  traditional  and  craniological — which 
Mormons  produce  in  support  of  their  claim  that  the  first 
Americans  were  of  the  white  race.  To  prove  that  the 
ancient  Americans  were  of  the  white  race,  or  were 
white  races,  Mormons  confidently  refer  us  to  the  tribes 
of  so-called  "white  Indians,"  as  the  Mandans  and 
Menominees,  who,  it  is  declared,  are  remnants  of  the 
ancient  population ;  to  the  traditions  of  "white  and 
bearded  men,"  who  .are  mentioned  as  the  authors  of  the 


142  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

ancient  civilization  of  Peru,  Central  America  and 
Mexico,  which  are  explained  in  harmony  with  the  ac 
counts  of  the  advent  of  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites;  to 
the  mummies  with  red  or  chestnut  hair  from  the  moun 
tain-caves  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  the  cliff-houses 
of  the  southwest  and  the  huacas  of  Peru,  in  which,  it  is 
declared,  the  type  of  the  ancient  race  is  preserved;  and 
to  the  crania  from  the  ancient  burial-places,  which  we 
are  told  are  far  superior  to  those  of  our  American 
Indians  in  both  skull  structure  and  shape.  These  are  the 
evidences  which  Mormon  writers  insist  corroborate  the 
Book  of  Mormon. 

WHITE  INDIANS. 

Among  the  various  Indian  tribes  which  have  been 
termed  "white  Indians"  may  be  mentioned  the  Yurucares 
of  Bolivia,  the  tribes  of  the  upper  Orinoco,  the  Mandans 
of  the  upper  Missouri,  the  Menominees  of  Wisconsin 
and  the  Kolosch  of  the  northwest  coast.  These  tribes 
are  distinguished  by  a  light  shade  of  complexion  from 
their  fellows. 

It  is  claimed  that  these  so-called  white  Indians  are 
the  descendants  of  the  remnant  of  the  Nephites  which 
escaped  at  the  battle  of  Cumorah.  "Doubtless,"  says 
Elder  Stebbins,  "they  were  scattered  and  driven  in  bands 
to  various  secluded  places,  and  from  them  came  the 
light-complexioned  tribes  who  have  been  known  since 
the  time  the  Europeans  settled  this  country,  such  as  the 
Mandans  and  other  tribes  mentioned  by  travelers  and 
explorers." — Lectures,  p.  262. 

But  it  can  not  be  proved  that  these  tribes  have  a 
drop  of  White  blood  in  their  veins.  Their  color  does 
not  prove  it,  for  it  is  not  a  darker  shade  of  white,  but  a 
lighter  shade  of  brown  or  coppery,  while  their  other 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  143 

physical  characteristics  link  them  closely  to  the  darker 
tribes  around  them. 

On  this  point  Bradford  writes:  "But  yet  no  varieties 
have  been  observed  which  approach  the  Indians  any 
where  near  the  white  and  black  races,  and  where  an  ex 
ception  occurs  in  one  particular,  the  other  peculiarities 
are  still  retained.  It  is  true,  many  statements  have  been 
made  concerning  the  existence  of  white  and  black  In 
dians,  but,  upon  examination,  they  are  found  to  have 
proceeded  usually  from  the  early  travelers,  who  were 
often  vague  and  exaggerated  in  their  use  of  terms;  or  to 
have  been  founded  upon  misnomers ;  or  to  have  related 
to  tribes  who  had  intermarried  with  Europeans." — 
American  Antiquities,  p.  259. 

Brinton,  also,  after  giving  American  anthropology 
his  close  attention  for  a  lifetime,  declares  that  there  is  no 
tribe  on  this  continent  which  possesses  a  truly  white  skin. 
He  says :  "The  hue  of  the  skin  is  generally  said  to  be 
reddish,  or  coppery,  or  cinnamon  color,  or  burnt  coffee 
color.  It  is  brown  of  various  shades,  with  an  undertone 
of  red.  Individuals  or  tribes  vary  from  the  prevailing 
hue,  but  not  with  reference  to  climate.  The  Kolosch 
of  the  northwest  coast  are  very  light  colored;  but  not 
more  so  than  the  Yurucares  of  the  Bolivian  Andes.  The 
darkest  are  far  from  black,  and  the  lightest  by  no  means 
white." — The  American  Race,  p.  39. 

In  respect  to  its  variations  in  color,  the  red  race  has 
not  as  wide  extremes  as  the  Ethiopian  and  the  Caucasian. 
The  former  includes  within  its  limits  the  yellow  Hotten 
tot  and  the  coal-black  tribes  of  the  tropics ;  while  in  the 
latter  the  color  variations  run  from  the  blue-eyed,  blond- 
haired  Teuton  to  the  dark-skinned  Arab.  The  light  color 
of  some  of  the  American  tribes  does,  therefore,  not 
prove  that  they  have  White  blood  in  their  veins,  but  is, 


144  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

evidently,  only  one  of  those  physical  anomalies  met  with 
among  all  the  varieties  of  mankind. 

The  whiteness  of  many  of  these  tribes  has  also  been 
grossly  exaggerated. 

The  Menominees,  for  instance,  are  not  truly  white ; 
Short  says  they  are  of  an  "ash  color,"  the  color  of  "white 
mulattoes,"  and  a  friend  of  mine,  who  has  frequently 
seen  them,  informs  me  that  they  are  "smoky  white."  In 
their  other  features  they  are  distinctly  Indian,  having  the 
same  coarse,  straight,  black  hair  and  high  cheek  bones  of 
the  tribes  around  them,  while  they  are  connected  linguis 
tically  with  the  Chippeways,  Ottawas  and  Pottawatamies. 

The  white  Indians  of  the  upper  Orinoco,  according  to 
Humboldt,  who  gave  them  a  personal  examination,  differ 
"from  other  Indians  only  by  a  much  less  tawny  skin, 
having  at  the  same  time  the  features,  the  stature  and  the 
smooth,  straight,  black  hair  of  their  race ;"  and  Brinton 
asserts  that  their  light  color  "is  not  a  question  of  descent, 
but  of  climatic  surroundings  and  mode  of  life."  ] 

As  for  the  Yurucares,  the  traveler,  D'Orbigny,  sug 
gests  that  their  fair  complexion  is  due  to  their  residence 
in  the  dense  forests  in  a  hot,  humid  atmosphere.  And  this 
explanation  seems  very  reasonable,  for  it  is  an  unques 
tioned  fact  that  darkness  and  humidity  have  a  tendency 
to  bleach  out  the  skin  into  a  lighter  hue.  He  also  observed 
large  patches  of  albinism  upon  many  of  their  persons.2 

The  Mandans,  while  they,  or  some  of  them,  have  light 
complexions,  blue  eyes  and  chestnut  hair,  have  other 
peculiarities  which  are  distinctively  Indian.  Dellenbaugh 
("The  North  Americans  of  Yesterday,"  p.  394)  gives 
us  a  cut  of  Rushing  Eagle,  a  Mandan  chief,  in  whom  are 
displayed  the  typical  features  of  the  red  race:  low  fore- 


1  "The   American    Race,"    p.    271. 

2  "The   American   Race,"   p.   297. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  145 

head,  large  nose,  high  cheek  bones  and  black  hair.  And 
Bradford  suggests  that  the  light  complexion  of  some  of 
the  members  of  this  tribe  may  be  due  to  intermixture. 
He  says :  "But  connected  as  they  are  by  affinities  in  lan 
guage  to  other  tribes  whose  Indian  physiognomy  can  not 
be  doubted,  it  is  possible  that  these  peculiarities  have 
been  produced  by  an  intermixture  of  the  race." — Ameri 
can  Antiquities,  p.  267. 

"The  Algonkins,"  says  Brinton,  "with  one  voice  called 
those  of  their  tribes  living  nearest  the  rising  sun  Abnakis, 
our  ancestors  at  the  east,  or  at  the  dawn ;  literally,  our 
white  ancestors." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  207. 
From  this  a  Mormon  author1  insists  that  the  ancestors  of 
the  Algonkins  were  truly  white.  But  this  claim  has  no 
good  foundation,  for  the  Abnakis  are  not  white,  but 
copper  colored,  and  they  derive  their  name,  not  from  a 
peculiarity  of  complexion,  but  from  the  fact  that  they 
are  the  farthest  east  of  any  of  the  Algonkin  tribes  and 
dwell  toward  the  "white  land,"  the  land  of  the  rising  sun. 

Donnelly  is  a  prominent  Mormon  witness  on  the  light 
complexion  of  the  ancient  Americans.  He  states  that  the 
ancient  Quichuas  of  Peru  were  a  "fair-skinned  race,  with 
blue  eyes  and  light  and  even  auburn  hair,"  and  that  their 
descendants  "are  to  this  day  an  olive-skinned  people, 
much  lighter  in  color  than  the  Indian  tribes  subjugated 
by  them."  But  the  assertion  of  this  author  relative  to 
the  color  of  the  ancient  Peruvians  is  wholly  gratuitous. 
He  does  not  know  and  can  not  prove  what  he  claims. 
And  his  descriptions  of  their  descendants  do  not  accord 
with  the  descriptions  of  other  and  better  authors. 

Says  Bradford:  "The  present  Peruvian  Indians,  who 
are  of  the  same  race  as  the  ancient  inhabitants,  are  de- 


"Divinity  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  Proven  by  Archaeology,"  p.  120. 


146  CVMORAH  REVISITED 

scribed  as  of  a  copper  color,  with  high  cheek  bones,  small 
black  eyes  set  widely  apart,  hair  coarse  and  black,  with 
out  any  inclination  to  curl,  beard  scanty,  nose  somewhat 
flattened,  small  stature,  and  the  feet  small:  these  char 
acters  are  of  general  prevalence  among  all  the  natives." 
— American  Antiquities,  p.  263. 

And  Brinton  states:  "Cieza  de  Leon  and  other  early 
Spanish  writers  frequently  refer  to  the  general  physical 
sameness  of  the  Peruvian  tribes.  They  found  all  of  them 
somewhat  undersized,  brown  in  color,  beardless,  and  of 
but  moderate  muscular  force." — The  American  Race, 
p.  210. 

These  writers  positively  deny  that  the  Quichuas  were 
of  a  lighter  color  "than  the  Indian  tribes  subjugated  by 
them,"  and  Bradford  declares  that  all  of  the  Peruvian 
tribes  are  of  the  same  race  as  the  ancient  inhabitants. 

Some  of  the  tribes  owe  their  light  color  to  an  admix 
ture  with  the  whites  since  the  discovery  of  the  continent 
in  1492.  For  instance,  the  great  number  of  half-breeds 
who  are  so  common  in  North  America.  The  Boroanes 
of  Chili,  a  tribe  of  Araucanians,  with  light  eyes,  fair 
complexion  and  red  hair,  also  owe  these  peculiarities  to 
descent  from  women  taken  in  Spanish  towns.1 

Among  the  Pueblos  of  the  Southwest  albinos  are 
common.  They  have  light  complexions,  light  hair  and 
blue  or  pink  eyes.  Bancroft  says  of  the  Pueblos  and 
Mokis:  "Albinos  are  at  times  seen  amongst  them,  who 
are  described  as  having  very  fair  complexions,  light  hair 
and  blue  or  pink  eyes." — Native  Races,  Vol.  I.,  p.  530. 
Brinton  informs  us  that  the  Pueblos  are  not  all  of  the 
same  stock,  but  that  they  belong  to  at  least  four  families : 
the  Moki,  Kera,  Tehua  and  Zuni.  On  the  albinos  among 


1  "American  Antiquities,"  p.  262. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  147 

the  Zuni  we  have  the  following  report:  "Many  of  the  In 
dians  of  Zuni  (New  Mexico)  are  white.  They  have  a 
fair  skin,  blue  eyes,  chestnut  or  auburn  hair,  and  are 
quite  good  looking.  They  claim  to  be  full-blooded  Zuni- 
ans,  and  have  no  tradition  of  intermarriage  with  any 
foreign  race.  The  circumstance  creates  no  surprise 
among  this  people,  for  from  time  immemorial  a  similar 
class  of  people  has  existed  among  the  tribe." 

But,  as  could  be  expected,  Elder  Walker,  who  is 
anxious  to  find  some  evidence  by  which  he  may  establish 
the  Book  of  Mormon  claim  that  a  white  race  once  inhab 
ited  America,  will  not  have  it  that  way,  and  declares  that 
"the  description  of  the  Zunians  will  not  apply  to  Al 
binos." — Ruins  Revisited,  p.  202.  He  gives  no  reason 
for  making  so  unwarranted  an  assertion,  and  the  reader 
is  left  to  infer  that  he  has  none.  There  is  no  more  reason 
for  assuming  that  the  peculiar  whiteness  of  the  Indian 
albinos  is  due  to  descent  from  the  Caucasian  race  than 
that  the  peculiar  whiteness  of  the  negro  albino  is,  which 
we  know  is  not  the  case. 

There  is  as  much  reason  for  claiming  that  the  ancient 
Americans  were  a  black  race  as  that  they  were  white, 
if  we  are  to  be  led  to  a  conclusion  by  the  complexion 
of  their  descendants ;  for  the  Kaws  of  Kansas,  Short 
declares,  "are  nearly  as  black  as  the  negro,"  and  Win- 
chell  informs  us  that  the  "ancient  Indians  of  California, 
in  the  latitude  of  forty-two  degrees,  were  as  black  as 
the  negroes  of  Guinea."  And  invariably  the  light-com- 
plexioned  tribes  are  lower  in  point  of  culture  than  are 
many  of  those  which  are  darker  skinned.  And  this  is 
inconsistent  with  the  theory  that  they  are  descendants 
of  the  civilized  and  enlightened  Nephites.  The  semi- 
civilized  tribes  of  Peru,  which  contended  so  strongly 
against  Pizarro,  are  described  as  copper  colored,  with 


148  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

coarse  black  hair,  high  cheek  bones,  scanty  beards,  noses 
somewhat  flattened,  small  statures  and  small  feet.  The 
enterprising  Mayas  are  said  by  Brinton  to  be  "short, 
strong,  dark  and  brachycephalic."  ]  And  the  Nahuas  are 
said  to  be  copper  colored,  with  thick,  black,  coarse  hair, 
thin  beards  and  black  eyes.  Thus  we  look  in  vain  for 
physical  marks  among  the  more  civilized  tribes  of  Amer 
ica  by  which  descent  from  the  Nephites'may  be  traced. 

TRADITIONS    OF    WHITE    AND    BEARDED    MEN. 

The  traditions  of  the  appearance  in  America  of  white 
and  bearded  men  are  warped  into  harmony  with  the 
accounts  of  the  advent  of  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 
Some  of  these  men  are  said  to  have  come  in  ships,  and 
all  are  said  to  have  introduced  civilization  among  the 
natives. 

All  of  the  more  advanced  nations  had  traditions  of 
the  coming  of  these  civilizers.  The  Nahuas  had  their 
Ouetzalcoatl,  the  Tzendals  their  Votan,  the  Zapotecs 
their  Wixeepecocha,  the  Mayas  their  Zamna,  the  Quiches 
their  Gucumatz,  the  Muyscas  their  Bochica,  and  the 
Quichuas  their  Viracocha.  There  is  a  striking  sameness 
to  these  old  tales,  all  agreeing  that  their  heroes  were 
white  and  bearded;  that  they  appeared  suddenly  and 
mysteriously;  and  that,  after  their  work  was  done,  they 
disappeared  in  the  same  way.  It  was  the  expectancy  of 
the  return  of  Ouetzalcoatl,  and  the  confounding  of  Cor- 
tez  with  him,  that  made  the  conquest  of  Mexico  no  more 
difficult  than  it  was. 

Quetzalccatl  is  described  as  a  white  man  with  digni 
fied  bearing,  large,  round  head,  broad  forehead  and  long 
black  hair.  He  is  said  to  have  come  to  Cholula,  Mexico, 
from  Yucatan  (some  accounts  say  from  Tulha,  Mexico), 


"The   American    Race,"   p.    154. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  149 

and  is  declared  to  have  been  a  man  of  great  moderation, 
bitterly  opposed  to  war  and  violence  and  to  the  sacrifice 
of  human  beings.  After  twenty  years  in  Cholula,  during 
which  time  he  taught  the  people  the  art  of  working  in 
silver,  he  departed  toward  the  east  with  the  promise  that 
he  would  return  at  a  future  day  and  rule  the  land.  Many 
of  the  Spanish  fathers  identified  Quetzalcoatl  with  the 
apostle  Thomas,  but  Lord  Kingsborough  and  Elder  Steb- 
bins  think  he  was  none  other  than  Jesus  Christ.  His 
name  signifies  bright  or  shining  snake,  or  feathered  ser 
pent,  and  in  his  deification  he  stands  in  Aztec  mythology 
as  the  god  of  the  wind  or  air.1 

Votan,  the  hero  of  Chiapas,  came,  according  to  tradi 
tion,  from  across  the  sea  with  a  company  of  followers 
called  by  the  natives  "Tzequiles."  They  are  said  to  have 
been  white  and  bearded  and  to  have  taught  the  savage 
Chichimecs  the  arts  of  civilized  life.  To  him  is  ascribed 
the  honor  of  the  erection  of  Palenque  and  the  establish 
ment  of  the  empire  of  the  Serpents  about  a  thousand 
years  before  Christ.  Mormons  think  that  Votan  and  his 
followers  were  the  Jaredites  from  Babel.2 

Wixeepecocha,  the  white  and  bearded  culture  hero  of 
the  Zapotecs,  is  said  to  have  come  from  the  sea  and  to 
have  been  a  man  of  venerable  aspect  who  dressed  in  the 
habiliments  of  a  monk.  In  character  he  was  like  Quet 
zalcoatl,  and  was  so  strict  a  celibate  that  no  woman  was 
allowed  in  his  presence  except  to  give  her  auricular 
confession,  a  practice  which  he  established  among  the 
people.  A  legend  says  that,  after  suffering  persecution, 
he  mysteriously  disappeared  from  the  summit  of  Mount 
Cempoaltepec.3 


"Myths  ot   the   New  World,"   p.   213. 

"Parsons'  Text-book,"  pp.    14,    15.     "The  Book  Unsealed,"   Chap.   III. 

"I\ative    Races,"    Vol.    III.,   p.    455. 


iSo  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

The  traditional  account  of  Zamna  is  that  he  entered 
Yucatan  very  early,  some  say  coming  from  the  west, 
others  from  the  east.  According  to  one  account,  he  was 
the  son  of  Hunab  Ku,  "the  only  god,"  and  his  spouse, 
Ixazaluoh.  Unlike  Wixeepecocha,  he  was  well  received 
by  the  people,  who,  after  his  death,  founded  the  city  of 
Izamal  over  his  grave.  To  him  is  ascribed  the  honor  of 
the  invention  of  hieroglyphical  writing.1 

The  Quiche  account  of  Gucumatz  very  closely  resem 
bles  that  of  Quetzalcoatl,  and,  as  their  names  mean  the 
same,  good  authorities  have  decided  that  they  are  one 
and  the  same  mythical  character,  and  identical  with  the 
Maya  god,  Kukulkan.2 

Bochica,  so  tradition  says,  after  civilizing  the  Muys- 
cas  of  Colombia,  retired  into  a  monastic  state  for  two 
thousand  years.3 

And  Viracocha,  "foam  of  the  sea,"  arising  from  the 
bosom  of  Lake  Titicaca,  made  the  sun  and  moon  and 
placed  them  in  the  heavens,  presided  over  the  erection 
of  the  Peruvian  cities  on  the  islands  and  western  shore 
of  the  lake,  and  then  disappeared  in  the  western  ocean.4 

Bancroft  sums  up  the  accounts  of  these  culture  heroes 
in  the  following:  "Although  bearing  various  names  and 
appearing  in  different  countries,  the  American  culture 
heroes  all  present  the  same  general  characteristics.  They 
are  all  described  as  white,  bearded  men,  generally  clad  in 
long  robes ;  appearing  suddenly  and  mysteriously  upon 
the  scene  of  their  labors,  they  at  once  set  about  improv 
ing  the  people  by  instructing  them  in  useful  and  orna 
mental  arts,  giving  them  laws,  exhorting  them  to  practice 

1  "Native  Races,"  Vol.   III.,  p.  462. 

*  "Myths   ot   the   New   World/'  p.    141. 
8  "Native   Races,  '   Vol.   111.,  p.  269. 

*  "Myths  of   the   New  World,1'  p.  ail. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  151 

brotherly  love  and  other  Christian  virtues,  and  introduc 
ing  a  milder  and  better  form  of  religion ;  having  accom 
plished  their  mission,  they  disappear  as  mysteriously  and 
unexpectedly  as  they  came ;  and,  finally,  they  were  apoth 
eosized  and  held  in  great  reverence  by  a  grateful  pos 
terity." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  23. 

The  question  before  us  is,  Are  these  traditions  warped 
and  vague  accounts  of  the  coming  of  the  Jaredites  and 
Nephites  and  of  their  settlement  in  America?  Mormon 
writers  insist  that  they  are,  but  they  possess  certain  fea 
tures  which  forbid  the  application  they  make  of  them. 

Elder  Stebbins  says :  "Also  traditions  assure  us  that 
the  first  colonizers  were  civilized  and  were  white  men 
who  wore  beards." — Lectures,  p.  174. 

But  this  is  one  of  the  very  things  that  these  traditions 
do  not  assure  us  of.  These  white  and  bearded  men, 
according  to  the  accounts,  were  not  colonisers  of  an 
uninhabited  wilderness,  as  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites  are 
said  to  have  been,  but  civilizers  of  savage  and  unenlight 
ened  tribes  who  had  preceded  them.  They  all  found 
those  countries  to  which  they  came  inhabited.  Bancroft, 
speaking  of  Votan,  says :  "He  was  not  regarded  in  the 
native  traditions  as  the  first  man  in  America;  he  found 
the  country  peopled,  as  did  all  the  culture  heroes." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  159.  Now,  if  these  traditions 
are  historical,  who  were  the  dark-skinned  natives  who 
were  here  before  the  Jaredites  came?  Why  does  the 
Book  of  Mormon  give  us  no  information  regarding 
them?  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  this  part  of  the  tradi 
tions  is  purely  mythical,  while  that  which  relates  to  their 
physical  appearance  is  historical,  for  it  is  as  general 
throughout  all  the  traditions  as  the  claim  that  the  char 
acters  were  white  and  bearded. 

There  are  still  other  features  in  these  myths  which 


152  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

will  not  harmonize  with  the  Book  of  Mormon  account. 
Quetzalcoatl  is  described  as  bitterly  opposed  to  war  and 
violence,  as  were  also  Gucumatz  and  Wixeepecocha, 
which  can  be  said  of  neither  the  Jaredites  nor  Nephites. 
The  Votanese  could  not  have  been  either  of  the  two,  for, 
according  to  their  tradition,  they  founded  the  empire  of 
the  Serpents  in  955  B.  C.,  twelve  centuries  too  late  for 
the  Jaredites  and  eight  or  ten  centuries  too  early  for  the 
Nephites.  Neither  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon  peoples,  Jared  nor  Nephi,  practiced  celibacy 
nor  instituted  auricular  confession.  Neither  disappeared 
mysteriously  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Cempoaltepec. 
Neither  was  buried  where  Izamal  now  stands,  like 
Zamna.  Neither  went  into  a  monastic  state  at  the  close 
of  their  life's  work.  And  neither  disappeared  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  If  it  is  objected  that  this  reasoning  is 
arbitrary,  I  ask,  How  is  it  to  be  determined  that  these 
minor  details  are  not  as  historical  as  the  claim  that  these 
culture  heroes  were  white  and  bearded? 

Students  interpret  these  traditions  in  three  ways :  ( i ) 
Some  believe  that  they  are  vague  historical  accounts  of 
Europeans  or  Asiatics,  who,  either  accidentally  or  pur 
posely,  came  to  our  shores  in  early  times,  and  who  after 
wards  either  returned  or  mysteriously  disappeared.  (2) 
Others  conclude  that  they  are  wholly  mythical  and  that 
the  white  and  bearded  men  are  simply  personifications 
of  the  dawn.  And  (3)  still  others  claim'  that  the  cul 
ture  heroes  were  Indian  reformers,  of  lighter  com 
plexions  than  their  fellows,  who  appeared  for  a  time 
among  the  natives,  introducing  among  them  advanced 
ideas,  and  who  afterwards  disappeared  to  be  deified  by 
a  grateful  posterity. 

I  commit  myself  to  no  theory.  It  is  possible  that 
these  myths  are,  in  a  limited  sense,  historical  and  record 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  153 

the  visits  of  white  reformers  from  the  Eastern  continent 
in  ancient  times.  However,  if  this  be  so,  and  it  is  not 
at  all  likely,  their  influence  could  not  have  been  great, 
for  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery  the  arts,  customs,  relig 
ions  and  languages  of  the  people  bore  no  marks  of  such 
an  impression  from  the  Old  World. 

Brinton  thinks  that  these  heroes  were  only  person 
ifications  of  the  dawn.  He  says  that  Quetzalcoatl  "is  a 
pure  creation  of  the  fancy,  and  all  his  alleged  history  is 
nothing  but  a  myth."  And  adds :  "Like  all  the  dawn 
heroes,  he,  too,  was  represented  as  of  white  complexion, 
clothed  in  long  white  robes,  and,  as  many  of  the  Aztec 
gods,  with  a  full  and  flowing  beard." — Myths  of  the 
New  World,  p.  214. 

But  other  authors  believe  that  these  heroes  were  real 
persons — Indian  reformers — who,  after  death,  were  dei 
fied  and  made  gods. 

Dellenbaugh  says  of  Quetzalcoatl:  "He  has  been  fre 
quently  identified  with  the  dawn,  but  there  seems  to  be 
good  reason  for  believing  that  he  was  a  real  character, 
who  became  deified  as  his  good  deeds  passed  down  to 
successive  generations." — North  Americans  of  Yester 
day,  p.  397- 

Bandelier  concludes  that  this  god  was  "a  prominent, 
gifted  Indian  leader,  who  certainly  preceded  the  com 
ing  of  those  Nahuatl  tribes" — Aztecs,  etc. — "that  subse 
quently  formed  the  valley  confederacy,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  later  tribe  of  Tlaxcallan.  The  claim  to  his  origin 
accordingly  rests  between  the  so-called  Toltecs  on  one 
side  and  the  Olmeca  and  Xicalanca  on  the  other." — Ibid. 

And  Thomas  asks:  "Is  it  not  possible  that  these  tra 
ditional  personages  were  priestly  messengers  traveling 
from  tribe  to  tribe  to  weld  together  a  common  brother 
hood?  Such  a  supposition  would  not  be  more  extrava- 


154  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

gant  than  that  theory  which  makes  of  them  sun  and  light 
myths." — American  Archaeology,  p.  363. 

No  matter  how  these  traditions  may  be  interpreted, 
they  will  not  harmonize  with  the  Book  of  Mormon.  If 
these  culture  heroes  are  only  personifications  of  the 
dawn,  as  Brinton  thinks,  or  Indian  reformers,  as  Ban- 
delier  and  others  conclude,  they  afford  no  support  to  the 
Book  of  Mormon  account.  And  even  if  these  traditions 
are  to  a  limited  extent  historical,  they  contain  radical 
features  which  can  not  be  made  to  agree  with  the  history 
of  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

Besides  the  tradition  of  the  origin  of  her  civilization 
previously  given,  Peru  had  two  other  traditions  account 
ing  for  the  introduction  of  advanced  ideas  among  her 
peoples.  According  to  one,  the  Sun,  taking  compassion 
on  the  degraded  condition  of  the  people,  sent  his  two 
children,  Manco  Capac  and  his  sister-wife,  Mama  Oello, 
"to  gather  the  natives  into  communities  and  teach  them 
the  arts  of  civilized  life."  And,  according  to  another, 
the  people  were  civilized  by  four  brothers  who  were 
raised  from  the  bosom  of  Lake  Titicaca  by  Viracocha 
and  were  given  the  four  points  of  the  compass. 

Baldwin  says  of  Montesinos :  "He  discards  the  won 
der-stories  told  of  Manco  Capac  and  Mama  Oello,  and 
gives  the  Peruvian  nation  a  beginning  which  is  at  least 
not  incredible.  It  was  originated,  he  says,  by  a  people 
led  by  four  brothers,  who  settled  in  the  valley  of  Cuzco, 
and  developed  civilization  there  in  a  very  human  way. 
The  youngest  of  these  brothers  assumed  supreme 
authority,  and  became  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  sov 
ereigns." — Ancient  America,  p.  264. 

Mormons  are  very  confident  that  these  four  white 
and  bearded  men  were  Laman,  Lemuel,  Sam  and  Nephi, 
the  last  the  youngest,  who  became  the  first  of  a  long 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  155 

line  of  Nephite  kings.  "Were  not  these,"  the  Committee 
ask,  "the  four  brothers,  Laman,  Lemuel,  Sam  and  Ne- 
phi?" — Report,  p.  19. 

But  they  could  not  have  been,  even  if  real  characters, 
for  the  following  reasons : 

1.  Their  names,  as  given  in  the  traditions,  are  Ayar- 
Manco-Topa,    Ayar-Cachi-Topa,    Ayar-Anca-Topa    and 
Ayar-Uchu-Topa,  not  Laman,  Lemuel,  Sam  and  Nephi. 

2.  They  found  the  country  already  inhabited  by  tribes 
to  whom  they  imparted  "the  blessings  of  civilization," 
instead  of  uninhabited  as  the  Nephites  are  said  to  have 
found  it. 

3.  If  Montesinos  is  correct,  they  entered  the  valley  of 
Cuzco  five  hundred  years  after  the  deluge,  several  cen 
turies  too  early  for  Lehi's  sons. 

4.  According  to  the  "Report  of  the  Committee  on 
American  Archaeology"  (pp.  18,  19),  Laman  and  Lemuel 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the   founding  of  ancient  Peru, 
being  a  thousand  miles  to  the  south  in  the  province  of 
Rioja. 

5.  The  four  sons  of  Lehi,  who  are  said  to  have  been 
at  the  founding  of  the  city  of  Nephi  (Cuzco),  were  Sam, 
Nephi,  Jacob  and  Joseph,  and  the  last  was  a  priest,  not 
a  king. 

Brinton,  who  is  not  inclined  to  take  any  of  these 
accounts  literally,  says  of  these  brothers:  "Their  names 
are  very  variously  given,  but  as  they  have  already  been 
identified  with  the  four  winds,  we  can  omit  their  con 
sideration  here." — Myths,  p.  212.  And  this  is  the  most 
reasonable  disposal  that  can  be  made  of  them. 

RED-HAIRED    MUMMIES. 

Mummies  with  red  or  chestnut  hair  have  been  dis 
covered  in  different  parts  of  America,  and  in  these,  it  is 


156  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

thought,  has  been  preserved  the  type  of  the  ancient  race. 
These  bodies  have  been  taken  from  the  saltpetrous  caves 
of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  from  the  cliff-houses  of  the 
Southwest  and  from  the  burial-places  of  Peru.  They 
have  been  preserved  by  different  agencies,  by  the  action 
of  certain  chemicals  in  the  soil  or  in  the  atmosphere  of 
the  places  where  they  have  been  deposited,  by  the  cool, 
dry  climate  or  by  a  primitive  but  effective  process  of 
embalment. 

The  question  before  archaeologists  is  this:  Are  these 
mummies  with  auburn  hair  the  bodies  of  a  race  different 
from  the  present  American,  or  is  the  light  color  of  their 
hair  due  to  the  action  of  certain  chemicals  found  in  their 
depositories  ? 

The  latter  is  by  far  the  more  reasonable  explanation 
of  the  mystery,  and  has  to  support  it  the  fact  that  the 
soils  of  their  burial-places  are  strongly  impregnated  with 
lime,  saltpeter  and  other  chemicals  which  have  a  tendency 
to  fade  out  the  color  of  human  hair. 

Short  says  of  the  opinion  of  Jones  on  the  color  of 
the  mummies  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee:  "Pro 
fessor  Jones  supposes  that  the  light  color  of  these  so- 
called  mummies  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  is  due  to 
the  action  of  lime  and  saltpeter." — North  Americans  of 
Antiquity,  p.  187. 

And  Bradford,  in  speaking  of  these  mummies  and 
also  those  from  Peru,  says :  "With  regard  to  the  color 
of  the  hair  observed  upon  these  bodies" — from  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee — "it  has  been  unreasonably  considered  as 
sustaining  the  theory  of  the  European  origin  of  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  the  west.  The  probabilities  are, 
however,  that  its  original  hue  was  black,  and  that  the 
change  to  its  present  appearance  is  owing  to  the  chemical 
action  of  the  saltpetrous  earth  in  which  the  bodies  were 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  157 

deposited.  In  corroboration  of  this  view,  some  human 
remains  found  in  Peruvian  sepulchres  may  be  referred 
to;  several  of  these  tombs  examined  in  1790,  by  the 
Spaniards,  contained  bodies  in  an  entire  condition,  but 
withered  and  dried,  and  the  hair  of  a  red  color.  From 
their  position  and  other  accompanying  circumstances, 
they  were  undoubtedly  the  remains  of  the  Peruvian 
Indians,  the  change  in  the  hair  having  probably  arisen 
from  the  character  of  its  soil,  it  being  impregnated  with 
saline  matter." — American  Antiquities,  pp.  31,  32. 

Yet  Short,  after  admitting  that  "the  siliceous  sand 
and  marl  of  the  plain  southward  of  Arica" — in  Peru — 
"where  the  most  remarkable  cemeteries  are  situated,  is 
slightly  impregnated  with  common  salt  as  well  as  nitrate 
and  sulphate  of  soda,"  still  contends  that  the  ancient 
Peruvians  were  "an  auburn-haired  race" ! 1 

A  most  conclusive  proof  that  the  light-haired  mum 
mies  of  America  are  the  bodies  of  American  Indians  is 
that  they  were  buried  in  the  same  way  and  in  the  same 
kinds  of  sepulchres  in  which  the  historic  tribes,  of  the 
localities  in  which  they  have  been  found,  buried  their 
dead. 

Many  of  the  light-haired  mummies  from  Peru  have 
been  taken  from  large  towers  called  chulpas,  made  of 
rough  stone  and  clay,  square,  round  or  rectangular  in 
shape,  and  often  over  twenty  feet  high.  The  bodies 
were  wrapped  in  llama  skins,  were  entombed  in  a  sitting 
posture,  and  were  surrounded  by  the  ornaments  and 
utensils  which  they  had  made  use  of  during  life.  But 
these  chulpas  were  not  the  work  of  an  extinct  race,  but 
of  the  Aymaras,  a  tribe  now  existing,  who  practiced  this 
mode  of  burial,  according  to  Las  Casas,  until  after  the 

1  "The  Book  of  Mormon  Verified,"  p.  22. 


158  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Spanish  Conquest.  Brinton  says :  "The  sepulchral  struc 
tures  of  the  Aymaras  also  differed  from  those  of  the 
Incas.  They  were  not  underground  vaults,  but  stone 
structures  erected  on  the  surface,  with  small  doors 
through  which  the  corpse  was  placed  in  the  tomb.  They 
were  called  chulpas,  and  in  construction  resembled  the 
tolas  of  the  Quitus." — The  American  Race,  p.  220.  As 
the  mummies  from  these  sepulchres  are  the  bodies  of 
Aymara  Indians,  and  as  the  color  of  the  hair  in  this  tribe 
is  naturally  black,  we  are  warranted  in  our  conclusion 
that  the  light  color  of  the  hair  upon  their  heads  is  due 
to  external  chemical  causes. 

From  Arica,  Peru,  and  its  vicinity,  the  tombs  have 
yielded  up  a  great  number  of  these  mummies.  The 
burial-places  in  this  locality  are  of  circular  form  with  a 
diameter  of  from  three  to  five  feet  and  a  depth  of  from 
five  to  six,  and  are  often  surrounded  by  cromlechs  of 
rough  stones  or  are  surmounted  with  mounds.  Some  of 
the  bodies  from  these  sepulchres  have  been  preserved  by 
being  covered  with  a  resinous  substance ;  others  have 
simply  been  dried  before  inhumation.  They  were  seated 
on  slabs  of  stone,  with  the  knees  drawn  up  against  the 
breast,  and  the  head  resting  on  the  knees,  and'  were 
clothed  in  coarse  linen  cloth  sewn  with  cactus  thorns, 
and  were  surrounded  by  the  implements,  utensils  and 
ornaments  which  they  had  made  use  of  during  life. 
These  consisted  of  distaffs  filled  with  wool,  toys,  balls 
of  thread,  vases,  wooden  needles,  combs  and  shell  money, 
and  such  provisions  for  the  journey  of  the  soul  as  maize 
and  cocoa  leaves.  As  identically  the  same  kind  of  sep 
ulchres  has  been  employed  by  historic  tribes,  and  as  the 
same  kinds  of  ornaments,  utensils  and  implements  have 
been  used  by  them,  we  have  two  strong  links  connecting 
these  mummies  with  the  race  now  living. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  159 

The  mummies  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  which 
have  been  found  in  the  saltpetrous  caves  of  those  States, 
also  are  evidently  only  the  bodies  of  North  American 
Indians.  That  historic  tribes  employed  these  caves  as 
depositories  for  their  dead  will  probably  not  be  denied, 
as  their  remains  have  from  time  to  time  been  found  in 
them.1  These  bodies,  like  those  from  Peru,  were  placed 
in  a  sitting  posture  and  were  surrounded  by  implements 
of  agriculture,  hunting  and  warfare,  and  were  dressed 
and  ornamented  exactly  as  the  North  American  Indians 
dressed  and  ornamented  their  dead.  The  articles  found 
with  these  bodies  were  bows  and  arrows,  pottery,  fishing- 
nets,  cloths,  mats,  cane  baskets,  beads,  wooden  cups, 
bark  moccasins,  turkey  feather  fans,  dressed  deerskins, 
and  other  things  of  like  character,  showing  that  they 
belonged  to  a  primitive  hunter  race  and  not  to  a  civilized 
people  like  the  Nephites.2  When  we  come  to  consider 
that  in  no  way  but  in  color  of  hair  did  these  mummies 
differ  from  the  Cherokees  and  other  tribes  which  inhab 
ited  this  territory  at  the  time  of  its  settlement  by  the 
whites,  and  that  the  chemicals  found  in  these  very  caves 
will  change  the  hair  from  black  to  sorrel  or  foxy,  there 
is  no  good  reason  for  believing  that  these  mummies  be 
longed  to  any  other  but  the  red  race. 

On  the  light-haired  mummies  from  the  country  of 
the  Cliff  Dwellers,  Elder  Stebbins  writes  as  follows: 
"When  at  the  World's  Fair  last  summer  I  saw  some 
relics  of  that  people.  The  professor  who  had  charge 
made  plain  the  difference  between  the  skulls  of  the  Cliff 
Dwellers  and  those  of  the  Indians,  showing  the  remark 
able  similarity  between  the  heads  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers 
and  the  heads  of  the  Caucasian  race  to-day.  Also  in  the 

1  "Cherokees   in   Pre-Columbian   Times,"    p.    35. 

2  "American  Antiquities,"  p.   30,   31. 


160  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Utah  Building  I  saw  a  mummy,  a  well-preserved  mummy 
of  a  Cliff  Dweller;  and  upon  all  the  skulls  the  hair  was 
as  fine  as  the  hair  of  the  white  people  of  our  time,  and 
some  was  both  fine  and  light  colored.  Indian  hair  is  all 
dark,  all  coarse.  The  skulls  were  shaped  like  the  skulls 
of  white  people,  a  very  distinct  and  different  people  from 
the  Indians." — Lectures,  pp.  103,  104. 

But  Mr.  Stebbins'  conclusions  are  not  shared  by  the 
greater  body  of  archaeologists  to-day.  When  we  come 
to  examine  carefully  these  light-haired  mummies  and  the 
evidences  of  their  antiquity,  culture  and  relationship,  we 
find  nothing  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  they  represent 
a  race  distinct  from  the  Pueblos  and  kindred  tribes  which 
now  inhabit  those  parts.  Even  if  it  should  be  proved  that 
the  natural  color -of  their  hair  was  light,  it  would  not 
establish  their  connection  with  the  Caucasian  race,  for, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  tribes  of  that  locality  are  noted  for 
the  great  number  of  light-haired  individuals  which  they 
have  among  them,  while  some  have  skulls  that  are  very 
well  formed.  And  even  if  the  bodies  of  white  men  should 
be  found  in  the  cliff  dwellings,  it  should  cause  no  sur 
prise,  for  it  is  now  known  that  'the  Cliff  Dwellers  were 
here  as  late  as  the  year  1735  A.  D.  As  Coronado  first 
visited  the  "Seven  Cities  of  Cibola"  in  1540,  we  have 
nearly  two  hundred  years  during  which  white  men  might 
have  been  adopted  among  this  people  and  their  dead 
bodies  deposited  in  their  burial-places.  I  do  not  state 
this  as  a  fact,  but  suggest  it  as  a  possibility. 

Some  Mormons  claim  that  the  Cliff  Dwellers  were 
the  Gadianton  robbers  spoken  of  in  the  Book  of  Mormon 
who  fled  to  the  mountain  fastnesses  in  order  to  escape 
the  hand  of  the  law,  and  who  sallied  forth  from  time  to 
time  to  plunder  the  peaceable  Nephites.  ''These  bands 
of  robbers,"  says  Elder  Phillips,  "are  frequently  men- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  161 

tioned  in  the  Book  of  Mormon;  they  lived  in  the  time  of 
the  later  civilization,  the  Nephites,  and  their  remains  are 
doubtless  the  same  that  are  known  now  as  'ruins  of  the 
Cliff  Dwellers,'  which  are  found  in  a  variety  of  places." 
— Book  of  Mormon  Verified,  p.  25. 

But  this  claim  is  met  by  the  undeniable  fact  that  the 
Cliff  Dwellers  were  not  warlike  freebooters,  but  peace 
able  agriculturists,  who  built  their  houses  and  grain-bins 
in  the  cliffs  to  protect  themselves  and  their  possessions 
from  savage  marauders,  of  whom,  it  is  certain,  the 
Apaches  were  a  tribe. 

Mr.  Stebbins  is  not  so  certain  on  the  nationality  of 
the  Cliff  Dwellers  as  Mr.  Phillips,  and  admits  that  he 
does  not  know  whether  they  were  Jaredites  or  Nephites, 
but  adds :  "Only  their  remains  are  found ;  but  all  unite  in 
saying  that  they  were  altogether  different  from  any  of 
the  tribes  of  Indians  that  were  in  North  America,  or  that 
even  dwelt  in  Mexico  or  Central  America,  at  least  in  any 
recent  age." — Lectures,  p.  104. 

It  is  amazing  with  what  ease  and  satisfaction  Mor 
mon  writers  make  claims  which  they  know,  or  ought 
to  know,  are  utterly  at  variance  with  the  established  facts 
of  archaeology.  Had  Mr.  Stebbins  given  the  subject  the 
critical  study  that  it  deserves,  he  never  would  have  writ 
ten  as  he  did,  for  "all"  do  not  unite  in  saying  that  the 
Cliff  Dwellers  were  different  from  the  Indian  tribes  of 
Central  America,  Mexico  and  the  United  States.  I  have 
taken  the  pains  to  read  a  number  of  works  on  the  sub 
ject,  and  have  found  that  the  opinion  that  the  Cliff  Dwell 
ers  were  the  direct  ancestors  of  the  Pueblos  and  kindred 
tribes  is  held  by  the  very  great  majority  of  our  archaeolo 
gists  to-day,  instead  of  the  theory  that  they  were  a  white 
race  of  foreign  extraction.  In  support  of  this,  I  now 
give  a  number  of  quotations  from  the  works  of  leading 


162  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

archaeologists.  These  explode  the  theory  that  the  Cliff 
Dwellers  were  blue-eyed,  blond-haired  Gadiantons. 

"As  already  stated,  it  appears  certain  that  the  Cliff 
Dwellers  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  pueblos  belonged  to 
the  same  race,  and  that  this  did  not  materially  differ 
from  the  Moquis  and  Zunis  of  the  present  day." — Pre 
historic  America,  p.  255. 

"Not  omy  do  the  ruins  of  this  group  bear  no  resem 
blance  to  those  of  the  south,  but  they  represent  in  all 
respects  buildings  like  those  still  inhabited  by  the  Pueblo 
tribes  and  the  Moquis,  and  do  not  differ  more  among 
themselves  than  do  the  dwellings  of  the  peoples  men 
tioned.  Every  one  of  them  may  be  most  reasonably 
regarded  as  the  work  of  the  direct  ancestors  of  the  pres 
ent  inhabitants  of  the  Pueblo  towns,  who  did  not  differ 
to  any  great  extent  in  civilization  or  institutions  from 
their  descendants,  though  they  may  very  likely  have  been 
vastly  superior  to  them  in  power  and  wealth.  Conse 
quently  there  is  not  a  single  relic  in  the  whole  region 
that  requires  the  agency  of  any  extinct  race  of  people, 
or  any  other  nations,  .  .  .  than  those  now  living  in  the 
country." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  683,  684. 

"I  would  emphatically  say  that  there  is  nothing  in 
any  of  the  remains  of  the  pueblos,  or  the  cliff  houses, 
or  any  other  antiquities  in  that  portion  of  our  continent, 
which  compels  us  to  seek  other  constructors  for  them 
than  the  ancestors  of  the  various  tribes  which  were  found 
on  the  spot  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  by  the  armies  of  the  United  States  in  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth.  This  opinion  is  in  accordance  with  his 
tory,  with  the  traditions  of  the  tribes  themselves,  and 
with  the  condition  of  culture  in  which  they  were  found." 
— The  American  Race',  p.  115. 

"I  have  included  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  North  Amer- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  .163 

ica  under  the  type  of  Asiatic  Americans.  There  is  little 
room  for  doubt  that  they  are  descendants  of  the  builders 
of  the  cliff  dwellings,  which  have  been  so  happily  de 
scribed  and  illustrated  by  Jackson  and  Holmes,  in  con 
nection  with  Dr.  Hay  den's  survey  of  the  Territories.  "- 
Preadamites,  pp.  340,  341. 

''There  is  not  much  room  left  to  doubt  that  the 
present  Pueblo  Indians  are  the  direct  descendants  of 
the  ancient  inhabitants  of  southern  Colorado  and  New 
Mexico." — Dr.  E.  Bessels,  Ibid,  p.  161. 

"There  is  no  warrant  whatever  for  the  old  assump 
tion  that  the  'cliff  dwellers'  were  a  separate  race,  and 
the  cliff  dwellings  must  be  regarded  as  only  a  phase  of 
pueblo  architecture." — Cosmos  Mindeleff,  in  i6th  Ann. 
Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p.  191. 

"The  kinship  of  Cliff  Dwellers  and  Pueblos  was 
long  ago  recognized  by  ethnologists,  both  from  resem 
blances  of  skulls,  the  character  of  architecture  and  ar 
chaeological  objects  found  in  each  class  of  dwellings." — 
/.  W .  Fewkes,  in  ifth  Ann.  Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p. 
532. 

"The  ancient  peoples  of  the  San  Juan  country  were 
doubtless  the  ancestors  of  the  present  Pueblo  tribes  of 
New  Mexico  and  Arizona." — W.  H.  Holmes,  Ibid,  p. 
532. 

"It  appears  to  be  generally  conceded  that  the  modern 
Pueblo  Indians  are  descendants  of  the  cliff  dwellers  and 
people  who  built  the  clustered  villages  on  the  mesas  and 
plateaus  which  have  been  mentioned." — American  Ar 
chaeology,  p.  229. 

"Directing  our  attention  now  to  still  another  region, 
we  find  in  the  Southwest  a  vast  deal  that  is  absorbingly 
interesting.  Fortunately,  the  people  were,  many  of  them, 
still  there  when  the  first  Spaniards  came  into  the  country 


164  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

in  1540,  so  that  we  have  data  to  prevent  the  attributing 
the  works  found  there  to  some  mysterious  race.  It  has 
been  attempted  in  the  case  of  the  'Cliff  dwellers,'  but  the 
investigations  of  competent  ethnologists  have  effectually 
settled  that  matter,  and  checked  the  romantic  tendency 
except  in  the  case  of  a  few  who  will  not  learn." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  176. 

Lumholtz  found  in  the  wild  and  uninhabited  regions 
of  the  Sierra  Madre,  in  Chihuahua,  a  number  of  impos 
ing  remains  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers.  These  consisted  of 
buildings  of  stone  perched  on  the  mountain-tops  and 
often  surrounded  by  fortifications,  cavate  structures, 
often  three  stories  high  and  provided  with  windows  and 
doors,  and  stone  terraces  built  across  narrow  glens. 
Burial  caves,  containing  mummies,  were  also  discovered. 
These  mummies  bore  a  wonderful  likeness  to  the  Moki 
Indians.  Thomas  speaks  of  them  as  follows :  "These 
mummies,  some  of  which  still  retained  the  hair  and  eye 
brows,  are  of  low  stature,  and  bear  a  marked  resem 
blance  to  the  Moki  Indians,  who,  as  well  as  the  Zunis, 
have  a  tradition  that  their  ancestors  came  from  the 
south." — American  Archaeology,  p.  222. 

And  still  further,  as  identifying  the  Cliff  Dwellers 
with  present  existing  tribes,  we  have  the  identity  between 
their  implements,  utensils,  ornaments  and  articles  of  food 
and  those  of  the  Pueblos.  Nordenskiold,  while  making 
an  exploration  in  the  vicinity  of  the  "Step  House,"  on 
the  Mesa  Verde,  discovered  a  number  of  graves  contain 
ing  mortuary  remains.  These  remains  consisted  of  eight 
bodies,  partly  or  wholly  mummified,  buried  in  shallow 
excavations  with  their  knees  drawn  up  against  their 
breasts,  and  with  them  such  articles  and  materials  as 
bowls,  mugs,  osier  matting,  arrow  shafts,  cornhusks, 
pieces  of  flint,  a  basketful  of  cornmeal  and  the  entire 


CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED  165 

shell  of  a  pumpkin.  A  visitor  at  a  Pueblo  village  two 
centuries  ago  would  have  seen  such  articles  in  actual  use. 

That  a  number  of  the  cliff  dwellings  have  been  de 
serted  since  the  coming  of  the  Europeans  is  established 
beyond  question  or  doubt.  When  the  Spaniards  first 
visited  that  part  of  the  country  the  towns  on  the  southern 
Gila  and  its  tributaries  were  abandoned,  while  those  far 
ther  north  were  found  by  Coronado  to  be  in  a  somewhat 
flourishing  condition.  In  1735  the  Cliff  Dwellers  were 
still  in  existence,  for  in  that  year  Pedro  de  Ainza  led  an 
expedition  from  Santa  Fe  against  the  Navajos  and  dis 
covered  a  people  living  in  stone  houses  "built  within  the 
rocks"  and  guarded  by  stone  watch-towers.  And  with 
this  the  traditions  of  the  natives  agree.  Brinton  declares 
that  the  Apaches  still  retain  a  tradition  of  having  driven 
out  the  Cliff  Dwellers,  and  that  one  of  their  gentes  is 
named  from  them  "stone-house  people."  ] 

On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Stebbins  declares:  "As  for  the 
age  in  which  the  Cliff  Dwellers  lived  there  is  no  clew  to 
it.  Neither  the  Spaniard  nor  any  other  European  found 
even  one  living  person  of  the  race;  none  have  been  seen, 
and  no  tradition  reaches  back  to  the  days  of  the  Cliff 
Dwellers." — Lectures,  p.  104. 

Like  many  another  of  his  assertions,  it  takes  but  little 
investigation  to  discover  its  falsity. 

AMERICAN    CRANIOLOGY. 

It  is  claimed  that  there  is  a  superiority  in  the  struc 
ture  and  shape  of  the  crania  of  the  ancient  Americans 
over  those  of  the  Indian  race ;  that  the  former  indicate 
an  intellectuality  on  the  part  of  the  ancient  races  that  the 
latter  do  not  possess.  Mr.  Stebbins  asserts :  "There  ap 
pears  to  be  abundant  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the 

1  "The  American  Race,"  p.  115, 


i66  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

ancient  Americans  in  color,  in  skull  structure  and  shape, 
and  as  to  the  fineness  and  light  shades  of  hair." — Lec 
tures,  p.  176. 

But  this  is  only  another  of  Mr.  Stebbins'  baseless 
assertions,  for  craniometry  does  not  reveal  a  superiority 
of  the  ancient  American  skulls  over  those  of  the  existing 
race,  but  clearly  establishes  that  in  skull  structure  and 
shape  the  ancient  Americans  were  precisely  like  those 
now  living. 

On  certain  skulls  found  in  California,  Illinois,  Argen 
tina  and  Brazil,  which  have  been  credited  with  a  very 
high  antiquity,  Brinton  writes:  "All  these  are  credited 
with  an  antiquity  going  back  nearly  to  the  close  of  the 
last  glacial  period,  and  are  the  oldest  yet  found  on  the 
continent.  They  prove  to  be  strictly  analogous  to  those 
of  the  Indians  of  the  present  day." — The  American  Race, 
p.  36. 

The  peculiarities  of  these  crania,  and  those  in  which 
they  conform  to  those  of  the  present  native  population, 
are  wide  malar  arches,  low  orbital  indices,  medium  nasal 
apertures  and  broad  faces.1 

In  connection  with  his  own,  Brinton  gives  the  con 
clusion  of  the  distinguished  Swiss  anatomist,  Dr.  J.  Koll- 
man,  which  is  that  "the  variety  of  man  in  America  at  the 
close  of  the  glacial  period  had  the  same  facial  form  as 
the  Indian  of  to-day,  and  the  racial  traits  which  distin 
guish  him  now,  did  also  at  that  time." 

And  this  is  the  opinion  of  the  learned  Charles  Dar 
win,  based  upon  the  report  of  Dr.  Lund  concerning  cer 
tain  skulls  from  the  caves  of  Brazil.  He  says  that  a 
naturalist  would  hear  "on  the  authority  of  an  excellent 
observer,  Dr.  Lund,  that  the  human  skulls  found  in  the 


*"The  American  Race,"  p.  36. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  167 

caves  of  Brazil,  entombed  with  many  extinct  mammals, 
belonged  to  the  same  type  as  that  now  prevailing 
throughout  the  American  continent." — Descent  of  Man, 
pp.  164,  165. 

But  not  only  are  these  peculiar  cranial  characteristics, 
which  in  a  very  general  way,  when  taken  together,  may 
be  said  to  distinguish  the  American  from  the  other  races, 
traceable  to  a  remote  antiquity,  but  the  very  diversities 
that  now  exist  have  always  existed.  Craniologists,  ac 
cording  to  their  measurements,  divide  human  crania  into 
three  classes:  brachycephalic,  mesocephalic  and  dolico- 
cephalic.  The  proportional  measurement  of  a  skull  is 
called  its  cephalic  index,  which  is  the  ratio  between  its 
width  and  length,  taken  antero-posteriorily.  If  the  width 
of  the  skull  is  78  per  cent.,  or  over,  of  its  length,  it  is 
said  to  be  brachycephalic,  or  short-headed;  if  it  is  be 
tween  78  per  cent,  and  74  per  cent.,  it  is  mesocephalic,  or 
middle-headed;  and  if  it  is  74  per  cent.,  or  under,  it  is 
dolicocephalic,  or  long-headed.  These  various  types  of 
crania  have  existed  contemporaneously  and  not  consecu 
tively,  and  it  is  far  from  the  truth  to  say  that  the  ancient 
Americans  were  of  one  type  and  that  the  Indians  are  of 
another. 

A  few  facts  relative  to  American  crania  will  set  this 
matter  before  the  reader  in  its  proper  light. 

Of  the  oldest  American  skulls  that  have  been  dis 
covered  that  from  Argentina  is  brachycephalic,  while 
those  from  Brazil  are  dolicocephalic.  That  the  latter  are 
skulls  of  the  present  American  race  Brinton  affirms: 
"The  skulls  and  human  bones  which  were  discovered  by 
Dr.  Lund  in  the  caves  of  Lagoa  Santa  in  immediate 
juxtaposition  to  those  of  animals  now  extinct,  came  from 
a  region  occupied  by  the  Tapuyas,  and  are  in  all  respects 
parallel  to  those  of  the  tribe  to-day.  This  would  assign 


168  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

them  a  residence  on  the  spot  far  back  in  the  present  geo 
logic  period." — The  American  Race,  p.  237. 

The  ancient  peoples  of  Peru  possessed  skulls  of  vary 
ing  type.  Of  245  crania  from  that  country  in  the  Acad 
emy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia,  168  are  brachy- 
cephalic,  50  are  dolicocephalic  and  27  are  mesocephalic. 
Of  thirteen  from  near  Arica  all  are  dolicocephalic  except 
one.  And  ninety-three  out  of  104  from  Pachacamac  are 
brachycephalic,  the  rest  being  mescocephalic.1 

The  same  diversity  exists  among  mound  crania. 
Thus,  of  two  skulls  from  one  burial-place,  found  by  Put 
nam,  one  is  brachycephalic  and  the  other  is  dolicocephalic. 
Of  eight  skulls  from  the  Red  River  mound  three  are 
bracycephalic.  Three  out  of  four  crania  from  Chambers' 
Island,  Wisconsin,  are  also  short.  Out  of  ten  from 
Fort  Wayne  one  is  long  and  the  rest  are  either  short  or 
intermediate.  Of  sixty-seven  examined  by  Carr,  which 
were  taken  from  the  stone-graves  of  Tennessee,  19  are 
brachycephalic,  5  are  dolicocephalic,  18  are  mesocephalic 
and  15  are  artificially  depressed.  Moorehead  took  from 
Hopewell's  Earthworks,  Ohio,  sixty-nine  skeletons,  of 
which  30  were  short-headed,  10  long-headed,  4  inter 
mediate  and  the  remainder  so  far  decayed  that  the  ceph 
alic  index  could  not  be  obtained,2  and  he  states  that  in 
the  mound-building  and  stone-grave  areas  of  Ohio  cra 
nial  forms  "as  wide  apart  as  those  of  the  Caucasian  and 
Ethiopian  are  not  uncommon."  !  And  from  the  aborig 
inal  cemetery  near  Madisonville,  Ohio,  come  fourteen 
hundred  crania,  of  which  twelve  hundred  are  brachy 
cephalic  and  the  remainder  dolicocephalic.4  Thus  we 

1  "The  American   Race,"   p.   210. 
z  "Primitive   Man   in   Ohio,"   p.    222. 
8  "Primitive    Man   in   Ohio,"    p.   206. 
4  "Primitive  Man  in  Ohio,"  o.  210. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  169 

see  that  among  the  ancient  inhabitants  all  types  of  skull, 
both  high  and  low,  were  to  be  observed. 

But  identically  the  same  variations  are  observed 
among  existing  tribes.  The  Mayas  of  Yucatan  are 
brachycephalic ,  their  neighbors,  the  Otomies,  are  mark 
edly  dolicocephalic.1  Among  the  Iroquois  and  Cherokees 
dolicocephalism  prevails,  while  their  congeners,  the  Hu- 
rons,  are  prevailingly  brachycephalic.2  The  Yumas  are 
generally  short-headed,  but  their  crania  have  been  found 
with  a  cephalic  index  as  low  as  sixty-eight.3  And  Brin- 
ton  informs  us  that  of  seventy-seven  Algonkin  crania  in 
the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia,  53  are 
dolicocephalic,  14  mesocephalic  and  10  brachycephalic.4 

By  these  facts  we  observe  that  not  only  those  features 
common  to  the  American  crania  of  the  present  day  are 
traceable  to  the  remotest  antiquity,  but  that  even  the 
existing  diversities  may  be  followed  back  to  the  earliest 
period.  And  this  clearly  refutes  Mr.  Stebbins'  baseless 
claim  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  superior  to  our 
modern  Indians  in  "skull  structure  and  shape." 

Even  those  who  have  held  that  the  "veritable  Mound 
Builders"  were  a  race  superior  to  the  North  American 
Indians  have  been  forced  to  concede  that  their  crania  are 
of  the  Indian  type. 

Foster  says:  "Hitherto  our  knowledge  of  the  Mound 
Builders'  crania  has  been  exceedingly  scant — restricted 
to  less  than  a  dozen  specimens — which,  if  authentic, 
clearly  indicate  for  the  most  part  the  Indian  type." — 
Prehistoric  Races,  p.  275. 

Bancroft  says:  "Very  few  skulls  or  bones  are  recov- 


1  "The  American  Race,"  pp.    135,    136. 

2  "The    American    Race,''    p.    81. 

3  "The    American    Race,"    p.    38. 

4  "The   American   Race,"   p.   75. 


I70  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

ered  sufficiently  entire  to  give  any  idea  of  the  Mound 
Builders'  physique,  and  these  few  show  no  clearly  de 
fined  differences  from  the  modern  Indian  tribes." — Na 
tive  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  775. 

And  J.  C.  Nott,  speaking  of  the  Choctaws,  says: 
"They  present  heads  precisely  analogous  to  those  ancient 
crania  taken  from  the  mounds  over  the  whole  territory 
of  the  United  States ;  while  they  most  strikingly  contrast 
with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  French,  Spaniards  and  negroes, 
among  whom  they  are  moving." — Types  of  Mankind, 
p.  289. 

These  statements  come  to  us  with  the  force  of  con 
cessions  from  men  who  have  believed  that  the  Mound 
Builders  were  people  distinct  from  the  tribes  of  North 
American  Indians. 

Indian  skulls  have  been  found  that  exceed  in  capacity 
the  skulls  of  the  ancient  American  races.  The  average 
cubical  capacity  of  the  Parisian  cranium  is  1,448  cubic 
centimeters;  that  of  the  American  Indian,  1,376,  and 
that  of  the  negro,  1,344.  "But,"  says  Brinton,  "single 
examples  of  Indian  skulls  have  yielded  the  extraordinary 
capacity  of  1,747,  1,825  and  even  1,920  cubic  centimeters, 
which  are  not  exceeded  in  any  other  race." — The  Ameri 
can  Race,  p.  39. 

When  we  come  to  compare  these  skulls  with  those  of 
the  ancient  Peruvians  from  along  the  coast — from  Arica, 
Chacota  and  adjacent  territory,  from  which  localities 
many  of  the  light-haired  mummies  come — which  average 
but  1,230  cubic  centimeters,  which  is  a  lower  capacity 
than  that  of  the  crania  of  the  Bushmen  and  Hottentots, 
we  are  strongly  impressed  that  some  at  least  of  the 
ancient  "civilized  people"  were  inferior  "in  skull  struc 
ture  and  shape"  to  some  of  the  modern  "savage  tribes." 

The  reader  will  have  observed  by  this  time  that  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  171 

evidences  adduced  by  the  Mormons  to  prove  that  the 
ancient  Americans  were  white  are  purely  inferential,  and 
that  their  inferences  are  drawn  from  some  very  uncer 
tain  sources.  The  tribes  of  "white  Indians"  are  far  from 
white,  being  only  of  a  lighter  copper  color  than  their 
fellows  and  possess  no  features  in  art,  culture  or  religion 
which  would  link  them  to  the  Nephites.  As  for  the  tradi 
tions  of  "white  and  bearded  men,"  it  is  not  at  all  certain 
that  they  are  historical,  but  even  if  they  are  vaguely  so 
the  characters  which  they  present  could  have  been  neither 
the  Jaredites  nor  Nephites,  for  invariably  they  are  de 
scribed  as  civilisers  of  barbarous  tribes  who  had  pre 
ceded  them,  and  not  colonizers  of  uninhabited  wilder 
nesses.  The  light  hair  of  some  of  the  American  mum 
mies  is  shown  to  be,  with  great  probability,  due  to  the 
mineral  ingredients  in  the  soils  of  their  burial-places, 
while  the  articles  found  with  them  and  their  manner  of 
burial  indicate  that  they  belonged  to  the  Indian  race. 
And,  lastly,  a  close  and  careful  comparison  of  the  Amer 
ican  crania  reveals  the  fact  that  the  present  distinctive 
cranial  features,  with  the  existing  diversities,  are  trace 
able  to  a  very  remote  period  in  the  past.  Not  a  single 
fact  can  be  produced  to  prove  that  another  race,  or  other 
races,  besides  the  red,  inhabited  this  continent  during 
those  centuries  in  which  Mormons  claim  it  was  inhabited 
by  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

I  close  this  chapter  with  the  following  quotation  from 
Brinton :  "These  very  ancient  remains  prove  that  in  all 
important  craniologic  indicia  the  earliest  Americans, 
those  who  were  contemporaries  of  the  fossil  horse  and 
other  long  since  extinct  quadrupeds,  possessed  the  same 
racial  character  as  the  natives  of  the  present  day,  with 
similar  skulls  and  a  like  physiognomy.  We  reach,  there 
fore,  the  momentous  conclusion  that  the  American  race 


172  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

throughout  the  whole  continent,  and  from  its  earliest 
appearance  in  time,  is  and  has  been  one,  as  distinct  in 
type  as  any  other  race,  and  from  its  isolation  probably 
the  purest  of  all  in  its  racial  traits." — Essays  of  an  Amer 
icanist,  p.  40. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  173 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Are  the  American  Indians  of  Jewish  Descent? — History  of  the 
Theory — What  Mormons  Claim — Jewish  Analogies — Facts 
Fatal  to  the  Theory. 

The  theory  that  the  American  Indians  are  descend 
ants  of  the  children  of  Israel  was  profoundly  entertained 
by  some  of  the  most  learned  and  most  pious  men  of  this 
country  a  century  ago,  and  the  number  of  analogies  they 
pointed  out  between  the  two  peoples  is  not  exceeded  by 
the  number  pointed  out  between  the  Indians  and  any 
other  race. 

Bancroft  remarks :  "The  theory  that  the  Americans 
are  of  Jewish  descent  has  been  discussed  more  minutely 
and  at  greater  length  than  any  other.  Its  advocates,  or 
at  least  those  of  them  who  have  made  original  researches, 
are  comparatively  few ;  but  the  extent  of  their  investiga 
tions  and  the  multitude  of  the  parallelisms  they  adduce 
in  support  of  their  hypothesis,  exceed  by  far  anything 
we  have  yet  encountered." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  pp. 

77,  78. 

The  first  to  advance  this  theory  were  a  number  of  the 
Spanish  priests  of  Mexico,  of  whom  Garcia  was  the  most 
scholarly.  He  claimed  to  find  evidence  sustaining  it  in 
the  similarities  between  the  Indians  and  the  Jews  in 
character,  dress,  religion,  physical  peculiarities,  condition 
and  custom.  Both,  he  declares,  were  liars,  despicable, 
cruel,  boastful,  idle,  dirty,  turbulent,  incorrigible  and 
vicious.  Both  were  slow  to  believe.  Both  showed  a  lack 
of  charity  to  the  poor,  sick  and  unfortunate.  Both  were 
naturally  give  to  idolatry.  Both  raised  their  hands  to 
heaven  in  making  an  affirmation.  Both  buried  their  dead 


174  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

on  hills  without  their  cities.  Both  rent  their  clothing 
upon  hearing  bad  tidings.  Both  gave  a  kiss  on  the  cheek 
as  a  token  of  peace.  Both  celebrated  their  victories  with 
songs  and  dances.  Both  drowned  dogs  in  wells.  And 
both  practiced  crucifixion.1  These  analogies  are  certainly 
absurd  enough,  yet  they  compare  favorably  with  those 
that  the  Mormons  adduce  to  prove  the  same  theory. 

The  first  Englishman  to  advocate  the  Jewish  descent 
of  the  American  Indians  was  Rev.  T.  Thorowgood, 
whose  work,  "Jewes  in  America,  or  Probabilities  that  the 
Americans  are  of  That  Race,"  was  published  in  London 
in  1650.  The  following  year  it  was  replied  to  by  Sir 
Hamon  L'Estrange,  in  his  "Americans  No  Jewes." 

William  Penn  was  also  of  this  opinion,  and  wrote  the 
following  to  the  Free  Society  of  Traders  of  London  in 
1683:  "I  am  ready  to  believe  them  of  the  Jewish  race — 
I  mean  of  the  stock  of  the  ten  tribes — and  that  for  the 
following  reasons :  First,  they  were  to  go  to  a  land  not 
planted  or  known" — see  2  Esdras  13:40-45 — "which,  to 
be  sure,  Asia  and  Africa  were,  if  not  Europe,  and  he  that 
intended  that  extraordinary  judgment  upon  them  might 
make  the  passage  not  uneasy  to  them,  as  it  is  not  impos 
sible  in  itself,  from  the  eastermost  parts  of  Asia  to  the 
westermost  parts  of  America.  In  the  next  place,  I  find 
them  of  a  like  countenance,  and  their  children  of  so  lively 
resemblance  that  a  man  would  think  himself  in  Duke's 
Place,  or  Berry  Street,  London,  when  he  seeth  them.  But 
this  is  not  all ;  they  agree  in  wrights,  they  reckon  by 
moons,  they  offer  their  firstfruits,  they  have  a  kind  of 
feast  of  tabernacles,  they  are  said  to  lay  their  altar  upon 
twelve  stones,  their  mourning  a  year,  customs  of  women, 
with  many  other  things,  that  do  not  now  occur." 

1  "Native  Races,"  Vol.  V.,  p.  80. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  175 

One  of  the  first  Americans  to  advocate  the  Jewish 
descent  of  the  American  Indians,  was  James  Adair,  in  his 
"American  Indians,"  London,  1775.  He  had  been  a 
trader  among  the  tribes  of  the  southeastern  part  of  the 
United  States  for  forty  years,  and  wrote  much  from  his 
own  observations.  In  many  respects  his  work  is  both  com 
mendable  and  valuable.  Jewish  rites,  customs,  beliefs  and 
institutions  which  he  claimed  to  find  among  the  Indians 
are:  "i.  Their  division  into  tribes.  2.  Their  worship  of 
Jehovah.  3.  Their  notions  of  a  theocracy.  4.  Their  be 
lief  in  the  administration  of  angels.  5.  Their  language 
and  dialects.  6.  Their  manner  of  counting  time.  7.  Their 
prophets  and  high  priests.  8.  Their  festivals,  fasts  and 
religious  rites.  9.  Their  daily  sacrifice.  10.  Their  ablu 
tions  and  anointings,  n.  Their  laws  of  uncleanliness. 
12.  Their  abstinence  from  unclean  things.  13.  Their 
marriage,  divorces  and  punishments  of  adultery.  14. 
Their  several  punishments.  15.  Their  cities  of  refuge. 
1 6.  Their  purifications  and  preparatory  ceremonies.  17. 
Their  ornaments.  18.  Their  manner  of  curing  the  sick. 
19.  Their  burial  of  the  dead.  20.  Their  mourning  for  the 
dead.  21.  Their  raising  seed  to  a  deceased  brother.  22. 
Their  change  of  names  adapted  to  their  circumstances 
and  times.  23.  Their  own  traditions;  the  account  of 
English  writers;  and  the  testimonies  given  by  Spaniards 
and  other  writers  of  the  primitive  inhabitants  of  Mexico 
and  Peru." — Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,  p.  245. 

Among  other  Americans  who  held  this  theory  were 
the  Indian  missionaries,  Mayhew  and  Eliot,  Elias  Bou- 
dinot,  Rev.  Ethan  Smith,  Dr.  Jarvis  and  Josiah  Priest. 
Boudinot's  work,  "Star  in  the  West,"  appeared  in  1816; 
Smith's  "View  of  the  Hebrews"  in  1820,  and  Priest's 
"American  Antiquities"  in  1833.  This  last-named  work 
is  still  a  standard  with  the  Latter-day  Saints,  if  not  with 


176  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

archaeologists,  although  from  being  a  work  on  antiquities 
it  has  become  an  antiquity  itself.  George  Catlin  has  also 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  American  Indians  have 
Jewish  blood  in  their  veins,  though  he  does  not  claim 
that  they  are  either  Jews  or  the  "lost  tribes."  He  speaks 
of  them  as  an  amalgam  race  and  thinks  that  they  have 
descended  from  the  Jews  crossed  with  a  primitive  stock. 
And  George  Jones,  in  his  "History  of  Ancient  America," 
holds  that  the  inhabitants  of  North  America,  but  of 
North  America  alone,  and  the  "lost  tribes"  are  identical. 

But  by  far  the  most  scholarly  and  illustrious  advocate 
of  the  Jewish  theory  was  Lord  Kingsborough,  an  Irish 
nobleman,  whose  work,  "Mexican  Antiquities,"  published 
in  nine  volumes,  in  London,  from  1831  to  1848,  is,  laying 
aside  his  theory,  deserving  of  much  commendation.  Ban 
croft  says  of  him :  "Kingsborough  has  a  theory  to  prove, 
and  to  accomplish  his  object  he  drafts  every  shadow  of 
an  analogy  into  his  service.  But  though  his  theory  is  as 
wild  as  the  wildest,  and  his  proofs  are  as  vague  as  the 
vaguest,  yet  Lord  Kingsborough  can  not  be  classed  with 
such  writers  as  Jones,  Ranking,  Cabrera,  Aclair,  and  the 
host  of  other  dogmatists  who  have  fought  tooth  and  nail, 
each  for  his  particular  hobby.  Kingsborough  was  an 
enthusiast — a  fanatic,  if  you  choose- — but  his  enthusiasm 
is  never  offensive." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  84.' 

According  to  these  authors,  the  ten  tribes,  or  a  portion 

1  I  have  succeeded  in  getting  hold  of  a  single  work  on  this  subject 
outside  of  those  written  by  Mormons.  This  work  is  "The  Ten  Tribes  of 
Israel;  or,  The  True  History  of  the  North  American  Indians,  Showing 
that  They  are  the  Descendants  of  These  Ten  Tribes,"  by  Mr.  Timothy 
Jenkins,  published  in  Springfield,  O.,  in  1883.  Although  this  book  has  been 
put  before  the  public  more  recently  than  the  works  of  most  of  the  writers 
on  this  theory,  it  abounds  in  the  same  curious  analogies,  imaginary  simi 
larities  and  unfounded  inferences  that  characterize  the  rest.  It  is  a 
cheap  compilation  of  the  notions  °nd  assertions  of  Adair  and  others,  with 
the  author's  ideas  interspersed. 


CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED  177 

of  them,  left  Assyria,  where  they  had  been  carried  cap 
tive,  traversed  the  continent  of  Asia,  crossed  the  Behring 
Strait,  and,  traveling  down  the  Pacific  Coast,  established 
a  Jewish  civilization  in  Mexico  and  Central  America. 

But  this  theory,  so  widely  entertained  a  century  ago, 
has  no  learned  defenders  to-day.  It  belongs  to  the  past, 
has  been  left  behind  in  the  onward  march  of  scientific 
research,  and  is  looked  upon  as  one  of  those  ludicrous 
fancies  upon  which  men  have  expended  so  much  zeal 
with  so  much  satisfaction  to  themselves  and  so  little  to 
succeeding  generations.  The  attitude  of  later  writers 
toward  this  theory  is  expressed  in  the  following  extracts 
from  their  works : 

"One  of  these  theories  is  (or  was)  that  the  original 
civilizers  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  were  the  'lost 
ten  tribes  of  Israel.'  This  extremely  remarkable  explana 
tion  of  the  mystery  was  devised  very  early,  and  it  has 
been  persistently  defended  by  some  persons,  although 
nothing  can  be  more  unwarranted  or  more  absurd.  .  .  . 
This  wild  notion,  called  a  theory,  scarcely  deserves  so 
much  attention.  It  is  a  lunatic  fancy,  possible  only  to 
men  of  a  certain  class,  which  in  our  time  does  not 
multiply." — Ancient  America,  pp.  166,  167. 

"It  is  hardly  necessary  at  this  day  to  advert  to  a  belief 
which  was  profoundly  entertained  a  century  ago,  except 
as  an  evidence  of  the  progress  of  ethnological  knowl 
edge." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  323. 

"The  notion  that  the  Indians  are  descendants  of  the 
Israelites  is  absurd." — Ridpath's  History  of  the  United 
States,  p.  41. 

"But  all  such  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  American 
races  from  an  Israelitish  stock,  or  from  a  Cymric  or  a 
Gaelic,  may  be  safely  dismissed  as  the  fruits  of  mis 
guided  enthusiasm  and  perverted  ingenuity." — Mr.  A.  T. 


i;8  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Rice,  in  the  Introduction  to  Charnay's  Ancient  Cities  of 
the  New  World. 

"There  has  been  a  vast  amount  of  discussion  relative 
to  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel.  The  literature  upon  this 
subject  is  extensive  and  somewhat  amusing  as  well  as 
absurd." — The  Mound  Builders,  p.  139. 

"The  wildest  as  well  as  the  most  diverse  hypotheses 
were  brought  forward  and  defended  with  great  display 
of  erudition.  One  of  the  most  curious  was  that  which 
advanced  the  notion  that  the  Americans  were  descendants 
of  the  ten  'lost  tribes  of  Israel.'  No  one  at  present  would 
acknowledge  himself  a  believer  in  this  theory ;  but  it  has 
not  proved  useless,  as  we  owe  to  it  the  publication  of 
several  most  valuable  works." — The  American  Race,  p. 
18. 

"As  for  the  Lost-Tribes-of-Israel  theory,  on  which 
Kingsbo rough  was  wrecked,  no  archaeologist  of  to-day 
would  be  willing  to  give  it  a  second  thought." — North 
Americans  of  Y  ester  day,  p.  429. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  presents  this  theory,  but  with 
two  important  differences.  It  claims  that  only  a  remnant 
of  Israel,  in  which  Manasseh,  Judah  and  possibly  other 
tribes  were  represented,  came  to  America;  and  that,  in 
stead  of  coming  by  way  of  Behring  Strait,  they  entered 
our  continent  at  two  different  points,  the  Nephites  land 
ing  somewhere  on  the  west  coast  of  South  America  and 
the  Mulokites  near  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 

For  confirmation  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  account, 
Latter-day  Saints  appeal  to  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
in  which  it  is  claimed  reference  is  made  to  the  book  itself, 
to  the  continent  of  America,  to  the  people  who  inhabited 
it,  to  their  emigration  from  Asia  and  to  the  coming  out 
of  the  book  and  the  religious  movement  connected  with 
its  appearance.  They  assert  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  is 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  179 

called  "the  book  that  is  sealed"  (Isa.  29:  n),  the  "stick 
of  Ephraim"  (Ezek.  37:  15-20),  and  the  "great  things  of 
my  law"  (Hos.  8:  12).  That  the  continent  of  America 
is  called  the  "midst  of  the  earth"  (Gen.  48:16),  the 
"land  shadowing  with  wings"  (Isa.  18:  i),  and  the 
"mountain  in  the  height  of  Israel"  (Ezek.  17:  23).  That 
to  reach  it  the  people  were  to  "run  over  the  wall"  (Gen. 
49:22),  go  "over  the  sea"  (Isa.  16:8),  and  "flee,"  get 
"far  off,"  "dwell  deep"  and  go  "unto  the  wealthy  nation, 
that  dwelleth  without  care,  saith  the  Lord,  which  have 
neither  gates  nor  bars,  which  dwell  alone"  (Jer.  49:30- 
32).  And  that  the  record  of  this  people  was  to  "speak 
out  of  the  ground"  (Isa.  29:4),  and  "spring  out  of  the 
earth"  (Ps.  85  :  n)  ;  that  a  few  of  its  words  were  to  be 
delivered  to  a  "learned"  man  (Professor  Anthon)  to 
read,  who  was  to  say,  "I  cannot,  for  it  is  sealed ;"  that  the 
book  was  to  be  delivered  to  one  "not  learned"  (Joseph 
Smith),  who  was  to  reply,  "I  am  not  learned,"  and  that 
following  this  the  Lord  was  to  do  a  "marvelous  work  and 
a  wonder"  among  a  people  who  were  to  draw  near  him 
with  their  mouths  and  with  their  lips  honor  him  while 
their  hearts  were  removed  far  from  him  (Isa.  29:  11-14). 
Thus,  by  associating  together  in  a  certain  relation  pas 
sages  which  have  not  the  slightest  reference  to  the  sub 
ject,  but  which  may  be  so  applied,  a  plausible  story  is 
constructed  by  which  the  unlearned  and  credulous  are 
deceived.  Shakespeare  very  truly  wrote : 

"  In  religion, 

What  damned  error  but  some  sober  brow 
Will  blecs  it,  and  approve  it  with  a  text, 
Hiding  the  gro'sness  with  fair  ornament?" 

Mormon  writers,  in  their  attempt  to  trace  the  Ameri 
can  Indians  back  to  a  Jewish  origin,  having  no  positive 
proof  upon  which  to  rely,  have  fallen  back  upon  the 


i So  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

analogies,  similarities  and  resemblances  which  have  been 
pointed  out  between  the  two  peoples,  not  considering  that 
such  are  more  often  due  to  human  instinct  and  similar 
environment  than  to  contact  or  relationship.  These  anal 
ogies,  similarities  and  resemblances  are  taken  from  the 
works  of  such  earlier  writers  as  Adair,  Boudinot,  Smith 
and  Priest,  and  are  merely  stated  in  Mormon  works,  not 
elaborated  upon,  for  a  truthful  elaboration  would  make 
their  forcelessness  and  ludicrousness  so  apparent  that  the 
theory  they  are  intended  to  prove  would  not  be  believed. 

Orson  Pratt  points  out  the  following  analogies  be 
tween  the  American  Indians  and  the  Jews  in  order  to 
sustain  the  claim  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  that  the  former 
are  of  Israelitish  origin:  "But  in  America  we  do  truly 
find  several  hundred  nations  of  people  who  do  not  exhibit 
that  diversity  of  character  which  we  find  distinguishing 
the  nations  of  the  eastern  world.  Their  color,  their  fea 
tures,  their  general  physiognomy,  their  traditions,  their 
manners  and  customs,  their  dialects,  their  general  char 
acteristics  of  mind,  and  modes  of  living — all  proclaim  that 
they  are  descended  from  one  common  origin.  While  their 
religious  worship,  their  belief  in  one  God,  their  computa 
tion  of  time  by  the  ceremonies  of  the  new  moon,  their 
having  an  ark  of  the  covenant,  their  erection  of  a  temple 
similar  to  the  Jewish  temple,  their  erection  of  altars,  their 
divisions  of  the  year  into  four  seasons  corresponding  to 
the  Jewish  festivals,  their  laws  of  sacrifices,  their  ablu 
tions  and  marriages,  their  places  of  refuge,  their  manner 
of  conducting  war,  their  abstaining  from  eating  certain 
things  forbidden  by  the  laws  of  Moses,  and  the  numerous 
affinities  of  their  language  to  the  Hebrew — all  testify 
loudly  that  they  are  of  Israelitish  origin." — O.  Pratt's 
Works,  p.  211. 

There  are  two  important  facts  that  these  theorists 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


181 


persistently  ignore.  First,  that  there  are  as  close  simi 
larities  between  the  Indians  and  other  peoples  in  lan 
guage,  religion  and  custom,  as  there  are  between  the 
Indians  and  the  children  of  Israel.  And,  second,  that 
more  than  to  counterbalance  these  analogies,  there  are 
peculiarities  in  the  American  languages,  religions  and 
customs  which  can  not  be  harmonized  with  this  theory 
of  descent.  It  has  long  been  conceded  by  ethnologists 
that  analogies  can  not  be  considered  positive  evidence 
of  a  connection  between  nation  and  nation,  for  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  peoples  wholly  unrelated  and  having 
had  no  contact  with  one  another  very  often  possess  strik 
ing  similarities  in  habit,  custom  and  rite.  The  Zulus  of 
South  Africa,  for  instance,  who  are  in  no  way  related  to 
the  tribes  of  Israel,  are  known  to  possess  a  number  of 
customs  strikingly  Jewish,  such  as  the  observance  of  their 
feast  of  firstfruits,  their  raising  up  seed  to  a  deceased 
brother,  etc.  These  close  similarities  have  caused  no 
little  comment  among  travelers.  Analogies,  therefore, 
are  not  first  proof  of  the  relationship  of  nations  and 
peoples,  but,  when  such  a  relationship  is  indicated  by 
well-defined  traditions,  the  structure  of  language,  etc., 
they  may  be  considered  as  cumulative  evidence  to 
strengthen  the  theory.  As  the  structure  of  the  American 
languages  is  wholly  different  from  that  of  the  Hebrew, 
and  as  there  is  nothing  in  any  of  the  American  traditions 
to  indicate  their  derivation  from  the  Hebrew  stock,  we 
may  say  that  the  analogies  pointed  out  by  Mormon 
writers  to  prove  that  the  American  Indians  are  descend 
ants  of  the  Jews  are  wholly  without  value  as  proof 

On  the  impossibility  of  proving  the  relationship  of 
two  nations  by  analogies  in  custom,  rite,  institution  and 
belief  Latham  remarks :  "To  tell  an  inquirer  who  wishes 
to  deduce  one  population  from  another  that  certain  dis- 


182  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

tant  tribes  agree  with  the  one  under  discussion  in  certain 
points  of  resemblance,  is  as  irrelevant  as  to  tell  a  lawyer 
in  search  of  the  next  of  kin  to  a  client  deceased  that, 
though  you  know  of  no  relations,  you  can  find  a  man  who 
is  the  very  picture  of  him  in  person — a  fact  good  enough 
in  itself,  but  not  to  the  purpose." — Man  and  His  Migra 
tions,  pp.  74,  75. 

On  the  same  point  Bancroft  says:  "But  analogies, 
even  when  fairly  drawn,  are  by  no  means  conclusive  evi 
dence.  So  much  depends  upon  the  environment  of  a 
people  that  a  similarity  in  that  particular  is  of  itself  suf 
ficient  to  account  for  most  of  the  resemblances  which 
have  been  discovered  between  the  customs,  religion  and 
traditions  of  the  Americans,  and  those  of  Old  World 
nations." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  5. 

And  Foster  observes:  "To  undertake  to  trace  ethnic 
relations  between  widely  separated  peoples,  by  similarity 
of  manners  and  customs,  is  an  uncertain  guide.  Man, 
apart  from  his  improvable  reason,  has  what  we  call,  in 
the  higher  animals,  instinct ;  and  as  the  beaver  every 
where  constructs  his  dam  according  to  a  definite  plan,  so 
will  man  perform  certain  acts  instinctively,  after  a  certain 
manner.  Hence,  among  barbarous  nations,  we  may  ex 
pect  to  find  a  similarity  of  manners  and  customs,  without 
necessarily  supposing  that  they  are  the  result  of  inherit 
ance." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  310. 

As  we  examine  the  analogies  in  rite,  institution,  cus 
tom,  habit  and  belief,  which  are  cited  by  the  Mormons  to 
prove  the  account  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  truthful 
ness  of  these  statements  will  become  apparent,  for  most 
of  the  rites,  institutions,  customs,  habits  and  beliefs  of 
the  American  Indians  are  wholly  unlike  the  rites,  institu 
tions,  customs,  habits  and  beliefs  of  ancient  Israel,  while 
the  few  that  are  said  to  possess  Jewish  features  are  so 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  183 

faintly  similar  as  to  need  a  liberal  amount  of  touching 
up  to  make  these  features  recognizable.  Of  the  latter 
some  are  not  exclusively  Jewish,  but  are  to  be  found 
among  other  nations  and  peoples.  Others  are  purely 
local,  found  among  but  few  of  the  tribes.  While  still 
others  have  been  made  out  of  whole  cloth.  When  care 
fully  and  conscientiously  examined  they  prove  to  be  very 
unsatisfactory  evidence,  if  they  can  be  called  evidence 
at  all. 

DIVISION    INTO    TRIBES. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  American  Indians  are  divided 
into  tribes  like  the  children  of  Israel;  hence  that  they 
must  be  of  Israelitish  descent.  This  is  about  the  first 
argument  presented  by  the  Mormons  to  prove  their 
theory.  Timothy  Jenkins,  who  is  not  a  Latter-day  Saint, 
but  who  holds  with  them  the  theory  of  the  Jewish  descent 
of  the  American  race,  states  this  argument  as  follows: 
"As  the  Israelites  were  divided  into  tribes,  and  had  a 
chief  over  them,  and  always  marched  under  ensigns  of 
some  animal  peculiar  to  each  tribe,  so  the  Indian  nations 
are  universally  divided  into  tribes,  under  a  sachem  or 
king,  chosen  by  the  people  from  the  wisest  and  bravest 
among  them.  He  has  neither  influence  nor  distinction, 
but  from  his  wisdom  and  prudence.  He  is  assisted  by  a 
council  of  old,  wise  and  beloved  men,  as  they  call  their 
priests  and  councilors.  Nothing  is  determined,  of  a 
public  nature,  but  in  this  council,  where  every  one  has  an 
equal  voice.  The  chief,  or  sachem,  sits  in  the  middle, 
and  the  council  on  each  hand,  forming  a  semi-circle,  as 
the  high  priest  of  the  Jews  did  in  the  Sanhedrim  of  that 
nation." — The  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel,  p.  117. 

But  the  simple  fact  that  the  American  Indians  are 
divided  into  tribes,  under  chiefs  and  with  councils  to 


184  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

make  their  laws,  does  not  prove  their  Israelitish  extrac 
tion  any  more  than  it  proves  their  descent  from  the  Mon 
golians,  Africans  or  Polynesians ;  for  tribes  of  these  races 
in  Asia,  Africa  and  Polynesia  are  organized  in  the  same 
general  way.  Besides,  the  tribal  governments  of  America 
were  not  cast  in  one  mould,  but  in  many  moulds,  and 
none  of  these  were  made  in  Palestine.  The  Iroquois  had 
no  supreme  chief,  but  their  confederacy,  which  is  de 
clared  to  have  been  "one  of  the  most  extraordinary  prim 
itive  governments  ever  recorded,"  was  governed  by  a, 
council  of  fifty  chiefs,  who,  in  time  of  war,  appointed 
two  war  chiefs  to  look  after  their  military  affairs.1 
Among  the  Wyandots  each  gens,  of  which  there  were 
eleven,  was  governed  by  a  council  composed  of  four 
women,  who  appointed  the  gentile  chief.  The  eleven 
gentile  councils,  with  the  chiefs,  constituted  the  tribal 
council.2  The  Crow  nation  is  ruled  by  two  head  chiefs, 
of  equal  authority,  and  six  counselors.3  The  Omahas 
formerly  were  presided  over  by  two  head  chiefs  of  equal 
power,  assisted  by  subordinate  chiefs.4  Each  town  of  the 
Creeks  had  its  own  chief,  or  miko,  chosen  from  a  par 
ticular  gens  and  for  life;  next  to  him  stood  the  council 
of  the  town,  composed  of  the  mikalgi,  and  counselors, 
which  appointed  the  Great  Warrior ;  following  these  in 
authority  came  the  hini  halgi,  old  men  and  advisers,  who 
presided  over  the  annual  busk  or  feast,  had  charge  of  the 
public  buildings  and  directed  agricultural  pursuits;  after 
these  came  the  isti  tchakalgi,  beloved  men;  and,  lastly, 
the  common  people.5  The  permanent  ruler  of  the  Len- 
apes,  who  was  called  the  peace-chief,  was  chosen  from  a 

1  "North   Americans   of   Yesterday,"   p.   425. 

2  Ibid,   p.  420. 
*Ibid,  p.  416. 

*  "Third   Kept.   Bu.   Am.   Ethno.,"   p.   357. 

6  "Migration  Legend  of  the  Creeks,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  156,  157. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  185 

particular  gens  by  the  chiefs  of  the  other  gentes;  his 
authority  was  not  absolute  and  in  war  he  had  no  concern, 
the  military  operations  being  in  charge  of  a  war-chief 
who  won  his  place  by  his  prowess  and  skill.1  In  Mexico 
the  king  was  assisted  in  the  government  by  a  council  of 
the  nobles.  Tlascala  was  ruled  by  four  supreme  lords, 
each  independent  of  the  others ;  these,  with  the  rest  of  the 
nobility,  formed  a  parliament  or  senate  which  made  the 
laws  of  the  State,2  In  Yucatan  the  power  of  the  king  was 
absolute,  and  he  appointed  all  officers,  both  secular  and 
religious,  organized  courts,  and  had  the  power  to  con 
demn  to  death  any  of  his  subjects  whom  he  saw  fit.3 
With  the  Quiches  the  king  was  a  despot  who  appointed 
lieutenants  over  his  provinces  and  who  was  supported  by 
a  council  of  twenty- four  grandees.*  And  in  Peru  the 
government  was  a  mild,  though  absolute,  despotism,  the 
voice  of  the  Inca  being  considered  the  voice  of  the  sun.5 
The  reader  will  observe  that,  instead  of  there  being 
only  one  form  of  tribal  government  in  America,  and  that 
form  resembling  the  government  of  the  children  of  Is 
rael,  there  were,  in  fact,  many  forms  which  present  no 
clearly  defined  resemblances  to  the  latter.  In  some  tribes 
chieftainship  was  hereditary;  in  others,  elective;  and  in 
still  others  the  head  of  the  tribe  or  band  assumed  his 
place  simply  through  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  with 
out  the  formalities  of  an  election.6  Some  of  the  tribes 
had  one  chief;  others  had  a  number.  Some  had  councils 
which  assisted  the  chief  in  the  administration  of  affairs ; 
in  others  the  power  of  the  king  was  absolute,  or  nearly 

"The  American  Race,"  p.  76. 

"Native   Races,"    Vol.   II.,  p.    141. 

Ibid,   p.    643. 

Ibid,   p.   641. 

"Conquest   of   Peru,"   Vol.   I.,   p.    13. 

"North   Americans   of   Yesterday,"    p.    416. 


186  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

so.  Some  tribes  were  governed  by  a  council  of  men ; 
others  by  a  council  of  women.  To  claim,  therefore,  that 
there  was  but  one  form  of  tribal  government  in  America, 
and  that  this  form  was  cast  in  a  Jewish  mould,  is  absurd 

and  is  contradicted  by  the  facts. 

i 

WORSHIP    OF    JEHOVAH. 

Mr.  Stebbins  says  on  the  similarity  of  the  theistic 
ideas  of  the  Indians  and  the  Jews :  ''Their  worship  of 
Jehovah,  calling  him  Yohewah,  is  itself  a  good  assurance 
of  their  Hebrew  origin." — Lectures,  p.  244.  And  he 
quotes  from  Catlin  the  following:  "The  first  and  most 
striking  fact  amongst  the  North  American  Indians  that 
refers  us  to  the  Jews  is  that  of  their  worshiping,  in  all 
parts,  the  Great  Spirit,  or  Jehovah,  as  the  Hebrews  were 
ordered  to  do  by  divine  precept,  instead  of  a  plurality 
of  gods." 

But  there  is  not  one  of  these  assertions  true.  The 
original  words  for  Deity  in  the  Indian  tongues  do  not 
convey  the  idea  of  personality,  but  express  simply  the 
supernatural  in  general,  the  marvelous,  the  mysterious, 
the  incomprehensible,  the  unknown.  Even  the  more  ad 
vanced  nations,  the  Aztecs,  Mayas  and  Peruvians,  were 
not  monotheistic,  for  they  all  had  many  gods,  although 
their  pantheons  were  usually  presided  over  by  supreme 
rulers  like  those  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  As  for  the 
"Great  Spirit,"  who  in  the  popular  conception  was  the 
deity  of  the  red  man  everywhere,  it  is  now  conceded  by 
all  the  best  students  of  the  primitive  American  religions 
that  he  is  wholly  a  creation  of  the  missionary,  unknown 
to  the  American  tribes  before  the  Discovery;  and  the 
name  "Yohewah"  is  only  the  effort  of  the  Cherokees  to 
pronounce  the  English  Jehovah ;  as  are  also  the  Choctaw 
"Chihowa"  and  the  Creek  "Chihufa."  The  original  word 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  187 

for  God  in  the  Cherokee  is  Oo-neh-lah-ner-he ;  in  the 
Choctaw  it  is  Chit-o-ka-ka,  and  in  the  Creek,  Hi-sak-i-ta 
Im-mis-si. 

Powell,  on  American  society,  art  and  religion,  writes : 
''Nations  with  civilized  institutions,  art  with  palaces,  mon 
otheism  as  the  worship  of  the  Great  Spirit,  all  vanish 
from  the  priscan  condition  of  North  America  in  the  light 
of  anthropo logic  research.  Tribes  with  the  social  in 
stitutions  of  kinship,  art  with  its  highest  architectural 
development  exhibited  in  the  structure  of  communal 
dwellings,  and  polytheism  in  the  worship  of  mythic  ani 
mals  and  nature-gods  remain." — First  Ann.  Kept.  Bu. 
Ethno.,  p.  69. 

NOTIONS  OF  A  THEOCRACY. 

Jenkins  asserts :  "The  Indians  also,  agreeable  to  the 
theocracy  of  Israel,  think  the  Great  Spirit  to  be  the  im 
mediate  head  of  their  state,  and  that  God  chose  them  out 
of  all  the  rest  of  mankind  as  his  peculiar  and  beloved 
people." — The  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel,  p.  141. 

But  as  the  American  Indians  originally  did  not  have 
a  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  Jehovah,  how  could  they  have 
had  the  Jewish  conception  of  a  theocracy?  It  is  impos 
sible  to  understand  how  they  could  have  believed  in  the 
divine  government  as  did  the  children  of  Israel  when 
their  gods  were  only  mere  fetiches,  deified  animals, 
apotheosized  men  and  the  elements  and  phenomena  of 
nature.  If  such  a  belief  as  Jenkins  describes  existed,  it 
certainly  dates  from  this  side  of  the  time  when  they  were 
taught  by  the  Christian  missionaries  to  believe  in  a  Great 
Spirit. 

BELIEF   IN  THE  ADMINISTRATION   OF  ANGELS. 

"These  people,"  says  Jenkins,  "believe  most  firmly 
that  their  seer  or  high  priest  has  communion  with  power- 


i88  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

ful  invisible  spirits,  whom  they  suppose  have  some  share 
in  the  rule  and  government  of  human  affairs,  as  well  as 
in  that  of  the  elements." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  147. 

But  while  this  is  true,  it  does  not  suggest  any  resem 
blance  whatever  to  the  communion  of  the  Hebrew  proph 
ets  of  old  with  the  angels  of  the  Lord,  but  was  a  practice 
most  heathenish  and  barbarous.  The  red  man  is  very 
superstitious.  He  believes  in  dreams  and  visions  and 
brings  them  on  by  excessive  feasting  or  protracted  fast 
ing.  His  "angels"  were  the  manitous,  okies,  fairies, 
spooks  and  hobgoblins  seen  in  these  dreams  and  visions. 
But  his  communication  with  the  unseen  world  was  not  all 
imaginary,  and  many  of  his  medicine  men  were  expert 
mediums  and  could  "call  up  the  spirits"  in  a  way  that 
would  put  some  of  the  experts  of  the  present  day  to 
shame.  Brinton,  in  the  following,  gives  the  general 
method  pursued  by  the  Indian  priests  in  communicating, 
supposedly,  with  the  spirits  of  the  dead :  "One  of  the 
most  peculiar  and  characteristic  exhibitions  of  their 
power  was  to  summon  a  spirit  to  answer  inquiries  con 
cerning  the  future  and  the  absent.  A  great  similarity 
marked  this  proceeding  in  all  northern  tribes,  from  the 
Eskimos  to  the  Mexicans.  A  circular  or  conical  lodge  of 
stout  poles,  four  or  eight  in  number,  planted  firmly  in  the 
ground,  was  covered  with  skins  or  mats,  a  small  aperture 
only  being  left  for  the  seer  to  enter.  Once  in,  he  care 
fully  closed  the  hole  and  commenced  his  incantations. 
Soon  the  lodge  trembles,  the  strong  poles  shake  and  bend 
as  with  the  united  strength  of  a  dozen  men,  and  strange, 
unearthly  sounds,  now  far  aloft  in  the  air,  now  deep  in 
the  ground,  anon  approaching  near  and  nearer,  reach  the 
ears  of  the  spectators.  At  length  the  priest  announces 
that  the  spirit  is  present,  and  is  prepared  to  answer  ques 
tions.  An  indispensable  preliminary  to  any  inquiry  is  to 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  189 

insert  a  handful  of  tobacco,  or  a  string  of  beads,  or  some 
other  douceur,  under  the  skins,  ostensibly  for  the  behoof 
of  the  celestial  visitor,  who  would  seem  not  to  be  above 
earthly  wants  and  vanities.  The  replies  received,  though 
occasionally  singularly  clear  and  correct,  are  usually  of 
that  profoundly  ambiguous  purport  which  leaves  the 
anxious  inquirer  little  wiser  than  he  was  before." — 
Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  309. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the  angels  with  whom 
the  Indian  medicine  men  communed  were  of  the  same 
class  with  those  who  possessed  the  demoniac  of  Gadara. 
The  practice  of  holding  intercourse  with  such  spirits 
would  be  branded  by  every  true  Latter-day  Saint  of 
to-day  as  a  practice  exceedingly  sinful. 

THEIR  LANGUAGES  AND  DIALECTS. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  languages  and  dialects  of  the 
American  Indians  possess  affinities  to  the  Hebrew.  This 
is  a  favorite  argument  with  the  defenders  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon.  Apostle  Kelley  quotes  the  following  from 
Josiah  Priest:  "Hebrew  words  are  found  among  the 
American  Indians  in  considerable  variety." — Presidency 
and  Priesthood,  p.  259.  And  Apostle  Pratt  gives  the 
following  from  Elias  Boudinot:  "Their  language  in  its 
roots,  idiom  and  particular  construction  appears  to  have 
the  whole  genius  of  the  Hebrew;  and  what  is  very  re 
markable,  and  well  worthy  of  serious  attention,  has  most 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  language,  especially  those  in 
which  it  differs  from  most  other  languages." — A  Voice 
of  Warning,  p.  82. 

But  these  assertions  are  so  manifestly  false  that  they 
hardly  need  serious  consideration.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Indians  did  not  speak  a  language,  but  languages.  Brinton 
informs  us  that  there  are  180  stocks  in  the  two  Americas, 


ipo  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

each  having  its  own  distinct  tongue,  which  is  divided  and 
subdivided  into  numerous  languages  and  dialects.  Ban 
croft  counted  nearly  six  hundred  languages  between, 
Alaska  and  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  and  these  are  so 
diverse  one  from  another  that  the  tongue  of  the  Iroquois 
is  unintelligible  to  the  Dakota  and  both  to  the  Algonkin. 
Besides  this  diversity,  the  Indian  languages  are  polysyn- 
thetic  in  structure,  while  the  Hebrew  is  inflectional,  and, 
since  the  days  of  Duponceau,  they  have  been  recognized 
as  constituting  a  linguistic  body  by  themselves. 

THEIR    MANNER   OF    COUNTING   TIME. 

On  the  Indian  manner  of  reckoning  time,  and  its  re 
semblance  to  the  Jewish,  Jenkins  says :  "They  reckon 
time  after  the  manner  of  the  Hebrews.  They  divide  the 
year  into  spring,  summer,  autumn  (or  the  falling  of  the 
leaf),  and  winter.  Korah  is  their  word  for  winter  with 
the  Cherokee  Indians,  as  it  is  with  the  Hebrews.  They 
number  the  years  by  any  of  these  four  periods,  for  they 
have  no  name  for  year.  And  they  subdivide  these,  and 
count  the  year  by  lunar  months,  or  moons,  like  the  Israel 
ites,  who  also  counted  by  moons." — The  Ten  Tribes,  pp. 
119,  120. 

The  Jewish  divisions  of  time  were  a  year  of  twelve 
lunar  months,  with  an  intercalary  month,  Veadar,  a  week 
of  seven  days,  and  a  day  beginning  at  evening  and 
divided  into  two  parts,  daylight  and  darkness,  the  for 
mer  divided  into  twelve  hours  and  the  latter  into  three 
watches.1  Nowhere  in  America  did  such  a  method  of 
reckoning  time  prevail.  The  mere  fact  that  the  Indians 
reckoned  time  by  years,  seasons,  lunations  and  days  sig 
nifies  nothing  as  to  their  origin,  for  all  primitive  peoples 
do  the  same.  It  is  only  natural  that  man,  observing  the 

1  Bissell's   "Biblical   Antiquities,"   pp.    I34-J39- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  191 

succession  of  daylight  and  darkness,  the  changes  of  the 
moon  and  the  revolution  of  the  seasons,  should  reckon  by 
these  natural  divisions  of  time.  Rev.  J.  G.  Wood  says 
of  the  Hottentot :  "As  is  the  case  with  most  savage  races, 
his  unit  of  time  is  the  new  moon,  and  he  makes  all  his 
reckonings  to  consist  of  so  many  moons." — Uncivilized 
Races  of  Men,  Vol.  I.,  p.  239.  Is  this  proof  that  the 
Hottentots  are  descendants  of  the  lost  tribes? 

In  Mexico  and  Central  America,  where  the  people 
had  developed  somewhat  beyond  the  northern  tribes,  the 
method  of  reckoning  time  was  both  artificial  and  original. 
With  both  the  Aztecs  and  Mayas  the  year  consisted  of 
eighteen  months  of  twenty  days  each,  divided  into  weeks 
of  five  days  each,  the  last  day  of  each  week  being  set 
apart  for  marketing  and  pleasure.  And  five  additional 
days  were  intercalated  each  year  to  make  the  365.' 
Among  the  Muyscas  the  day  was  divided  into  four  parts ; 
three  days  made  a  week  and  ten  weeks  a  lunation,  or 
suna.  Twelve  sunas  made  a  rural  year,  twenty  a  civil 
year  and  thirty-seven  a  ritual  year.2  These  methods  of 
reckoning  time  are  strikingly  un-Jewish. 

THEIR    PROPHETS   AND    HIGH    PRIESTS. 

The  Indian  priests  or  prophets  were  known  by  differ 
ent  names  among  different  tribes.  The  Algonkins  and 
Dakotas  called  them  "those  knowing  divine  things;"  the 
Mexicans,  "masters  or  guardians  of  the  divine  things ;" 
the  Cherokees,  those  "possessed  of  the  divine  fire;"  the 
Iroquois,  "keepers  of  the  faith ;"  the  Quichuas,  "the 
learned ;"  the  Mayas,  "the  listeners ;"  the  Eskimo,  "the 
ancient  ones  ;"  and  the  Apaches,  the  "wise  ones."  To  the 
average  white  man  they  are  known  simply  as  "medicine 


i  "Native  Races,"  Vol.   II.,  Chapters  XVI.,  XVII. 
8  "American   Antiquities,"   p.    317. 


192  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

men."  Among  the  Algonkins  there  were  three  orders  in 
the  priesthood,  the  wabeno,  the  mide  and  the  jossakeed, 
the  last  being  the  highest,  which  no  white  man  could 
enter.  The  priesthood  exerted  a  powerful  influence  over 
all  the  tribes  and  was  the  great  foe  that  the  Christian 
missionaries  had  to  face  in  planting  in  the  wilds  of 
America  the  gospel  of  the  cross.  The  advocates  of  the 
Jewish  theory  contend  that  the  priesthoods  of  the  Ameri 
can  tribes  are  only  another  mark  of  their  descent  from 
the  children  of  Israel.  On  the  prophets  and  priests 
among  the  Indian  tribes  Jenkins  remarks:  "The  Indians 
have  among  them  orders  of  men  answering  to  our  proph 
ets  and  priests.  In  the  Muskohge  language  hitch  lalage 
signifies  cunning  men,  or  persons  prescient  of  futurity, 
much  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  seer.  But  the  Indians,  in 
general,  call  their  pretended  prophets  loa-che,  men  resem 
bling  the  holy  fire,  or  clohim." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  145. 

Here  is  a  surprise  for  our  students  of  Hebrew !  On 
their  high  priests  he  quotes  with  approval  the  following 
from  Bartram :  ''There  is  in  every  town  or  tribe  a  high 
priest,  usually  nicknamed  by  the  white  people  the  juggler 
or  conjurer,  besides  several  of  inferior  rank." — Ibid,  p. 
147. 

He  also  informs  us  that  the  Indians  wore  on  their 
breast  a  plate  made  from  a  conch-shell,  and  that  it  was 
hung  over  the  neck  by  an  otter-skin  strap  the  ends  of 
which  were  passed  through  two  holes  bored  in  the  shell 
and  fastened  to  polished  buck-horn  buttons.  This,  he 
says,  was  in  "imitation  of  the  precious  stones  of  urim 
and  thummim,  which  miraculously  blazed  upon  the 
high  priest's  breast  the  unerring  words  of  the  divine 
oracle." 

None  but  the  eye  of  a  half-crazed  theorist  can  see  in 
these  similarities  any  evidence  to  support  the  theory  of 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  193 

the  Israelitish  descent  of  the  American  Indians.  If  the 
Jews  and  Indians  were  the  only  peoples  who  have  had 
prophets  and  high  priests,  there  might  be  some  force  to 
the  analogy,  but  as  they  are  to  be  found  among  many 
other  tribes,  it  counts  for  nothing  and  proves  nothing. 

FEAST    OF    FIRSTFRUITS. 

The  Jewish  "feast  of  weeks,"  which  is  also  called 
"Pentecost,"  "feast  of  harvest"  or  "day  of  firstfruits,"  is 
said  to  have  had  its  analogue  in  America  in  the  puskita, 
or  busk,  of  the  Creeks  and  similar  festivals  among  other 
tribes. 

The  law  governing  an  observance  of  the  feast  of 
weeks  among  the  Israelites  is  given  in  Num.  28:26-31. 
"Also  in  the  day  of  the  firstfruits,  when  ye  bring  a  new 
meat-offering  unto  the  Lord,  after  your  weeks  be  out,  ye 
shall  have  an  holy  convocation ;  ye  shall  do  no  servile 
work;  but  ye  shall  offer  the  burnt-offering  for  a  sweet 
savor  unto  the  Lord :  two  young  bullocks,  one  ram,  seven 
lambs  of  the  first  year ;  and  their  meat-offering  of  flour 
mingled  with  oil,  three  tenth  deals  unto  one  bullock,  two 
tenth  deals  unto  one  ram,  a  several  tenth  deal  unto  one 
lamb, 'throughout  the  seven  lambs;  and  one  kid  of  the 
goats,  to  make  an  atonement  for  you.  Ye  shall  offer 
them  beside  the  continual  burnt-offering,  and  his  meat 
offering  (they  shall  be  unto  you  without  blemish),  and 
their  drink-offerings."  This  feast  lasted  one  day. 

On  the  observance  of  such  a  feast  among  the  Indians 
of  the  southern  part  of  the  United  States,  Jenkins  says: 
"Mr.  Bartram,  who  visited  the  Southern  Indians  in  1778, 
gives  an  account  of  the  same  feast,  but  in  another  nation. 
He  says  that  the  feast  of  firstfruits  is  their  principal 
festival.  This  seems  to  end  the  old  and  begin  the  new 
ecclesiastical  year.  It  commences  when  their  new  crops 


194  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

are  arrived  at  maturity.  This  is  their  most  solemn  cele 
bration." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  165. 

I  condense  the  following  account  of  the  observance 
of  the  busk  among  the  Creeks  from  the  description  given 
of  it  in  Gatschet's  ''Migration  Legend  of  the  Creeks," 
Vol.  I.,  pp.  177-183.  Let  the  reader  be  on  the  lookout  for 
any  Jewish  features  it  may  present,  but  let  him  not  be 
disappointed  if  he  does  not  find  any. 

The  busk,  or  puskita,  lasted  from  four  to  eight  days, 
the  length  of  its  observance  depending  upon  the  size  and 
importance  of  the  town  celebrating  it.  The  time  of  its 
observance,  which  was  fixed  by  the  miko  and  his  council, 
depended  upon  the  maturity  of  the  maize  crop  and  upon 
other  conditions.  On  the  first  day  the  men  cleaned  the 
inclosed  area  of  their  great  house  (four  shed-like  build 
ings  put  together  so  as  to  form  an  inclosed  square)  and 
sprinkled  it  with  white  sand.  Those  whose  duty  it  was 
prepared  the  powerful  emetic,  black  drink,  while  others 
placed  four  logs  in  the  center  of  the  area  in  the  form  of  a 
cross,  with  the  arms  pointing  toward  the  four  cardinal 
points.  At  the  point  where  the  four  logs  converged,  the 
new  fire  was  made  by  friction.  Three  dances  were 
danced  during  the  day :  in  the  morning  the  women  of  the 
turkey  gens  danced  the  turkey  dance,  in  the  afternoon 
four  men  and  four  women  danced  the  tadpole  dance,  and 
in  the  evening  the  men  danced  the  hiniha.  In  the  middle 
of  the  forenoon  of  the  second  day  the  women  took  part 
in  the  gun  dance.  At  noon  the  men  rubbed  ashes  from 
the  hearth  of  the  new  fire  upon  their  chins,  necks  and 
bellies,  and,  after  a  plunge  in  the  river,  returned  to  the 
great  house.  They  then  rubbed  some  of  the  new  maize, 
which  in  the  meantime  had  been  prepared  by  the  women, 
upon  their  faces,  breasts  and  hands,  and  the  feasting  be 
gan.  The  third  day  was  passed  by  the  men  sitting  in  the 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  195 

inclosed  square.  On  the  fourth  day  the  women  cleaned 
their  hearths,  and,  after  sprinkling  them  with  clean,  white 
sand,  obtained  a  spark  of  the  new  fire  and  kindled  their 
own  with  it.  After  this,  the  four  logs  being  consumed, 
the  men  rubbed  the  ashes,  as  before,  upon  their  persons 
ind  leaped  into  the  river.  Following  this  act  they  tasted 
salt  and  danced  the  long  dance.  On  the  fifth  day  four 
new  logs  were  placed  on  the  hearth  of  the  great  house 
and  the  men  drank  assi  (black  drink).  The  sixth  and 
seventh  days  were  spent  by  the  men  in  the  great  house. 
The  ceremonies  of  the  eighth  day  were  the  most  impres 
sive.  A  decoction  made  of  fourteen  medicinal  plants  was 
drunken  by  the  men  and  rubbed  on  their  joints.  Follow 
ing  this,  another  mixture  was  prepared  composed  of  the 
ashes  of  old  maize  cobs,  pine  burs  and  ashes  from  the 
home  hearths.  A  pan  of  this  was  mixed  with  another  of 
wet  clay  and  was  brought  to  the  cabin  of  the  miko,  and 
two  others  were  taken  to  the  cabins  of  the  warriors,  who 
rubbed  themselves  with  the  contents.  After  this,  the 
miko  and  his  counselors  walked  four  times  round  the 
burning  logs,  each  time  throwing  tobacco  blossoms  into 
the  sacred  fire,  which  ceremony  was  repeated  by  the  war 
riors.  A  cane  with  two  white  feathers  on  one  end  of  it 
was  then  stuck  up  at  the  miko's  cabin,  and  remained  until 
sunset,  when  a  man  of  the  fish  gens  took  it  down,  and, 
followed  by  the  populace,  marched  to  the  river.  On  the 
way  the  death-whoop  was  sounded  four  times,  at  inter 
vals,  until  they  reached  the  water's  edge.  Then  some  of 
the  tobacco  was  thrown  into  the  river,  and  the  men, 
plunging  in,  picked  up  four  stones,  and,  crossing  them 
selves,  uttered  the  death-whoop  four  times,  each  time 
throwing  one  of  the  stones  back  into  the  river.  After 
nightfall  the  mad  dance  was  participated  in  and  the  busk 
ended.  At  this  feast  a  general  amnesty  was  proclaimed 


196  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

and  all  crimes,  except  murder,  were  forgiven.  This  is 
Adair's  "day  of  atonement."  At  the  celebration  of  the 
busk  old  furniture  was  broken  to  pieces  and  was  replaced 
by  new,  and  old  feuds  were  forgiven  and  forgotten. 
Similar  to  the  busk  of  the  Creeks  was  the  green-corn 
dance  of  the  Cherokees  and  other  tribes,  but  outside  of 
their  being  feasts  of  firstfruits,  marking  the  incoming 
harvest,  they  possessed  no  features  similar  to  those  of 
the  feast  of  firstfruits  among  the  children  of  Israel. 

CIRCUMCISION. 

It  is  claimed  that  circumcision  was  practiced  by  the 
American  Indians.  Beatty,  an  early  traveler  on  the  Ohio, 
asserts  that  an  old  Christian  Indian  informed  him  that 
an  old  uncle  told  him  that  long  before  his  day  the  people 
practiced  the  rite,  but  that  it  was  given  up  on  account 
of  the  mockery  of  the  young  people.  But  this  story  has 
come  through  too  many  hands  to  be  very  reliable.  It  is 
possible  that  it  was  wholly  the  invention  of  the  old  Chris 
tian  Indian  to  make  the  native  religion  appear  to  conform 
more  closely  to  the  Jewish. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  a  rite  analogous  to  cir 
cumcision  was  practiced  by  a  few  American  tribes,  though 
it  was  by  no  means  universal.  Bancroft  remarks:  "Al 
though  circumcision  was  certainly  not  by  any  means  gen 
eral,  yet  sufficient  proof  exists  to  show  that  it  was  in  use 
in  some  form  among  certain  tribes." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
II.,  p.  278. 

That  the  natives  of  Mexico  and  Central  America 
practiced  the  rite  is  stoutly  maintained  by  some,  while  it 
is  just  as  stoutly  denied  by  others.  Las  Casas  and  Men- 
dieta  declare  that  it  was  practiced  by  the  Aztecs  and 
Totonacs,  and  De  Bourbourg  claims  the  same  for  the 
Mijes,  while  Cogolludo  denies  that  it  was  practiced  in 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


197 


Yucatan,  and  Herrera  and  Acosta  consider  the  incision 
made  on  the  prepuce  to  have  been  mistaken  for  the  rite. 
Clavigero  denies  that  the  rite  was  ever  practiced,  and 
declares  that  the  scarification  of  the  breast,  stomach  and 
arms  is  the  practice  confounded  by  other  authors  with 
circumcision.1 

But  even  if  the  rite  were  performed  in  America,  it 
could  not  have  been  Jewish  circumcision,  for  circumcision 
among  the  Jews  was  for  a  "token  of  the  covenant"  be 
tween  them  and  Jehovah,  and  the  Indians  had  absolutely 
no  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  Deity.  Therefore,  it  was 
either  a  phallic  rite,  as  Squier  thinks,2  or  simply  the  sign 
of  the  renunciation  of  all  sexual  pleasure  for  a  life  of 
celibacy,  as  Brinton  believes.3  But  circumcision  is  by  no 
means  an  exclusively  Jewish  practice,  for  it  is  observed 
by  the  Kaffirs,  South  Sea  Islanders,  Ethiopians,  Egyp 
tians  and  Mohammedans.  Says  Bancroft:  "At  the  pres 
ent  day  the  rite  of  circumcision  may  be  traced  almost  in 
an  unbroken  line  from  China  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope." 
— Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  439.  Therefore,  if  it  was 
derived  from  the  Old  World  at  all,  it  might  have  been 
brought  from  many  other  countries  besides  Palestine. 

ABLUTIONS    AND    ANOINTINGS. 

Both  the  American  Indians  and  the  Jews  applied 
water  to  their  persons  ceremonially,  and  this  is  triumph 
antly  held  up  as  another  proof  of  their  relationship.  The 
following  is  from  Jenkins:  "The  Indian  nations  in  the 
coldest  weather,  and  when  the  ground  is  covered  with 
snow,  practice  their  religious  ablutions.  Men  and  chil 
dren  turn  out  of  their  warm  houses,  singing  their  usual 

1  "Native   Races,"  Vol.   II.,   pp.   278,   280. 

2  "Native   Races,"   Vol.   III.,   p.    507. 

3  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.   172, 


198  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

sacred  notes,  at  the  dawn  of  day,  'Y.  O.  He-wah,'  and 
thus  they  skip  along,  singing  till  they  reach  the  river, 
when  they  instantly  plunge  into  it." — The  Ten  Tribes, 
p.  174. 

But  what  is  there  in  this  to  suggest  an  Israelitish 
origin?  Smith  ("Bible  Dictionary,"  Art.  Baptism)  says: 
"It  is  well  known  that  ablution  and  bathing  was  common 
in  most  ancient  nations  as  a  preparation  for  prayers  and 
sacrifice,  or  as  expiatory  of  sin."  I  presume  that  there 
is  not  a  savage  tribe  but  who  applies  water  to  the  person 
in  some  of  its  ceremonies.  Moral  defilement  is  so  inti 
mately  connected  with  physical  defilement  in  the  uncul 
tured  mind  that  the  means  that  removes  one  will  remove 
the  other. 

On  the  anointings  among  the  Indians,  Jenkins  says : 
"The  Hebrews  also  had  various  washings  and  anointings. 
They  generally,  after  bathing,  anointed  themselves  with 
oil.  Their  kings,  prophets  and  priests  were  anointed  with 
oil,  and  the  Saviour  himself  is  described  as  'the  Anointed/ 
The  Indian  priests  and  prophets,  or  beloved  men,  are 
always  anointed  by  unction.  The  Chickasaws,  some  time 
ago,  set  apart  some  of  their  old  men.  They  first  obliged 
them  to  sweat  themselves  for  the  space  of  three  days  and 
nights  in  a  small  hut  made  for  that  purpose,  at  a  distance 
from  the  town,  for  fear  of  pollution,  and  from  a  strong 
desire  they  all  have  of  secreting  their  religious  mysteries. 
They  eat  nothing  but  green  tobacco  leaves  and  drink 
nothing  but  button-snake  wood  tea  to  cleanse  their  bodies 
and  prepare  them  to  serve  in  the  beloved,  holy  office. 
After  which  their  priestly  garments  are  put  on,  with  the 
ornaments  before  described,  and  then  bear's  oil  is  poured 
on  their  heads.  Like  the  Jews,  both  men  and  women 
often  anoint  themselves  with  bear's  oil." — The  Ten 
Tribes,  p.  174. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  199 

In  the  absence  of  proof  that  the  Hebrew  prophets  and 
priests  sweated  themselves,  ate  green  tobacco  leaves, 
drank  button-snake  wood  tea  and  anointed  their  heads 
with  bear's  oil,  preparatory  to  taking  up  their  sacred 
duties,  we  are  justified  in  concluding  that  this  analogy 
proves  nothing  but  the  ignorance  and  credulity  of  its 
propounders. 

LAWS   OF   UNCLEANNESS. 

The  Jewish  and  Indian  women,  during  their  menstrual 
periods,  were  separated  from  society,  and  the  former 
were  never  more  scrupulous  about  this  than  were  our 
own  aboriginal  tribes.  Usually  among  the  Indians  lodges, 
apart  from  the  rest,  were  set  aside  as  places  for  their 
retirement.  Schoolcraft  considers  this  the  most  strikingly 
Jewish  of  any  of  the  Indian  customs.  "The  most  striking 
custom  of  apparently  Hebraic  origin,"  he  says,  "is  the 
periodical  separation  of  females,  and  the  strong  and  uni 
versal  idea  of  uncleanness  connected  therewith." — School- 
craft's  Archaeology,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  60,  61. 

Of  all  the  analogies  cited,  this  is  the  only  one  so  far 
considered  which  is  sufficiently  exclusive  to  deserve  any 
special  attention,  for  while  the  idea  of  uncleanness  was 
associated  with  woman  at  the  time  of  her  menstrual 
periods  by  many  primitive  peoples,  yet  among  none  was 
it  associated  with  her  to  the  degree  that  it  was  among  the 
Jews  and  the  American  Indians. 

CITIES    OF    REFUGE. 

Israel  had  six  cities  of  refuge,  three  on  each  side  of 
the  Jordan.  To  any  of  these  a  person  suspected  of  mur 
der  might  flee  and  find  a  safe  asylum  until  his  case  had 
been  decided  by  judicial  inquiry.  If,  upon  trial,  he  were 
found  guilty,  he  was  turned  over  to  the  avenger  of  blood 


200  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

for  execution;  if  guiltless,  he  was  released;  or,  if  guilt 
less  of  the  crime  of  murder,  but  chargeable  with  some 
other  form  of  homicide,  he  was  detained  until  the  death 
of  the  high  priest. 

A  similar  institution  existed  in  America  in  the  "peace 
towns"  of  the  Cherokees,  Creeks  and  Senecas.  The  peace 
town  of  the  Cherokees  was  Echota,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Little  Tennessee.  That  of  the  Creeks  was  Kusa,  or  Coosa, 
on  the  Coosa  River,  Alabama.  And  that  of  the  Senecas 
was  Gaustrayea,  four  miles  east  of  Lewiston,  New 
York.  Among  the  Cherokees — and  here  their  law  dif 
fered  from  that  of  the  Israelites — even  the  willful  mur 
derer  was  safe  as  long  as  he  remained  within  the  precincts 
of  their  sacred  Echota,  until  the  annual  recurrence  of  the 
green-corn  dance,  when  a  general  amnesty  was  pro 
claimed.  If  he  desired  to  leave  before,  he  either  had  to 
run  the  risk  of  being  slain,  or  else  appease  the  wrath  of 
the  friends  of  the  murdered  man  with  presents.  Among 
the  Iroquois,  fugitives  from  justice,  no  matter  what  their 
tribe,  found  safety,  lodging  and  food  at  Gaustrayea.  Cur 
tains  of  deerskin  separated  the  pursued  from  the  pursuer 
until  the  former  had  been  properly  cared  for,  when  they 
were  withdrawn  and  the  hostile  parties  could  either  renew 
hostilities  or  flight  as  they  saw  fit.1  Similar  to  these  were 
the  places  of  refuge  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  such  as 
groves,  altars  and  temples.  So  great  was  their  abuse  that 
Tiberius  limited  their  number  and  greatly  curtailed 
their  privileges.  This,  with  the  preceding,  is  the  closest 
analogy  that  I  have  observed  between  the  American  In 
dians  and  the  children  of  Israel,  yet  when  there  is  so 
much  against  it  the  relationship  of  the  two  peoples  can 
not  be  proved  by  any  such  chance  similarities. 

1  "Nineteenth  Kept.  Bu.  Am.   Ethno.,"  pp.  207,  208. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  201 

ABSTINENCE    FROM    UNCLEAN    THINGS. 

Apcstle  Orson  Pratt  gives  as  one  of  his  reasons  for 
believing  that  the  Indians  are  of  Jewish  extraction  "their 
abstaining  from  eating  certain  things  forbidden  by  the 
law  of  Moses."  And  Jenkins  says :  "The  Indians  would 
not  eat  either  the  Mexican  hog,  or  the  sea-cow,  or  the 
turtle,  as  Gumilla  and  Edwards  inform  us ;  but  they 
held  them  in  the  greatest  abhorrence.  Neither  would  they 
eat  the  eel,  or  any  animal  or  bird  they  deemed  impure." — 
The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  175. 

But  the  disgust  in  which  these  various  animals  were 
held  must  have  been  purely  local,  for  they  were,  in  many 
parts,  considered  very  wholesome  as  food.  The  Mosaic 
law  classes  as  unclean  the  camel,  hare,  coney,  hog,  those 
fishes  without  scales,  the  weasel,  mouse,  lizard  and  chame 
leon.  In  America  the  llama,  the  American  camel,  was 
highly  prized  as  food  by  the  Peruvian  tribes.  The  tapir, 
the  Mexican  hog,  was  a  favorite  article  of  food  with  the 
Mayas,  as  was  also  the  turtle ;  and  both,  with  the  sea-cow, 
were  highly  esteemed  by  the  Isthmian  tribes.  And  as  for 
squirrels,  eels,  catfish,  hares,  and,  in  a  pinch,  even  mice 
and  snakes,  they  did  not  come  amiss  in  the  aboriginal 
larder.  Cannibalism  prevailed  throughout  America,  and 
there  were  but  few  tribes  who  were  not  addicted  to  the 
practice  of  eating  human  flesh.1  The  semi-civilized 
Aztecs  and  Mayas  both  were  cannibals  and  ate  the  flesh 
of  their  human  sacrifices.  The  practice  prevailed  in  the 
north  among  the  Algonkins  and  Iroquois,  as  noted  by 
the  Jesuits,  and  history  records  the  fate  of  a  Miami  chief 
who,  being  a  friend  to  the  English,  was  murdered  by  th<; 
Indian  allies  of  the  French  and  devoured.  Lafitau, 
Muret  and  Bruhier  declare  that  some  of  the  South  Amer- 

1  "Prehistoric   America,"   p.    62. 


202  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

ican  tribes  even  ate  their  dead,  but  this  is  denied  by  other, 
and  perhaps  better,  authority.1  It  would  seem  that  the 
American  Indians  were  very  far  from  the  Jews  in  respect 
to  the  animal  food  they  ate. 

MARRIAGE,   DIVORCE   AND   PUNISHMENT   OF   ADULTERY. 

Says  Catlin:  "In  their  marriages  the  Indians,  as  did 
the  ancient  Jews,  uniformly  buy  their  wives  by  giving 
presents,  and  in  many  tribes  very  closely  resemble  them 
in  other  forms  and  ceremonies  of  their  marriages." 

But  the  custom  of  wife-buying  is  not  exclusively  a 
Jewish  custom.  In  Africa  the  Zulu  still  purchases  his 
wife  with  oxen,  the  number  given  depending  upon  the 
value  set  upon  her  by  her  parents.  And  the  practice  of 
wife-buying  existed  among  our  barbaric  English  ances 
tors  up  to  the  time  of  Cnut,  who  abolished  it.  It  is  only 
one  of  those  practices  of  primitive  society  arising  from 
the  belief  that  women  are  the  property  of  the  men.  This 
is  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  American  custom ;  we 
need  not  look  for  a  better. 

As  to  divorce,  if  an  American  Indian  and  his  wife 
could  not  agree,  the  usual  custom  was  for  them  simply  • 
to  separate,  he  going  to  his  gens  and  she  to  hers,  the 
children,  if  they  had  any,  usually  following  the  mother. 
I  fail  to  see  any  distinctive  Jewish  custom  here. 

As  for  the  crime  of  adultery,  a  very  few  tribes  pun 
ished  the  guilty  parties  by  stoning  them  to  death.  The 
American  Indian,  like  most  other  men,  was  jealous  of  his 
marital  rights,  and  as  stones  were  plentiful  and  he  knew 
how  to  hurl  them  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  some 
times  resorted  to  this  method  of  punishing  his  wife's 
seducer.  Why  we  have  to  go  to  Palestine  for  an  explana 
tion  of  this  simple  and  primitive  method  of  punishment  is 

1  "First  Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.   182. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  203 

inexplicable.  But  all  tribes  did  not  stone  the  adulterer  to 
death.  Among  the  Modocs  the  adulterer  was  punished 
by  putting  out  an  eye,  by  expulsion  from  the  tribe,  or  by 
paying  a  fine  of  a  string  of  beads.1  A  Gallinomeros  slew 
his  wife's  seducer.2  In  another  California  tribe  the  hus 
band  could  either  kill  his  wife  or  give  her  up  to  her  mate 
and  appropriate  the  latter's  wife  to  himself.3  Adultery 
among  the  Comanches  was  punishable  by  death  or  ex 
posure  or  was  settled  by  private  agreement  by  the  inter 
position  of  the  elderly  warriors.4  The  Zapotec  could  kill 
or  pardon  his  wife's  seducer  according  to  pleasure ;  a  man 
who  forcibly  deflowered  a  virgin  was  stoned  to  death.5 
Adulterers  in  Mexico  were  either  stoned  or  strangled." 
In  Yucatan  and  Guatemala  they  were  thrown  from  preci 
pices.7  Again,  in  Guatemala,  a  married  man  taken  in  the 
act  with  a  maiden  was  compelled  to  pay  a  fine  of  from 
sixty  to  one  hundred  rare  feathers.  If  the  crime  was 
committed  with  a  married  woman,  for  the  first  offense 
the  parties  were  simply  warned  and  were  compelled  to 
pay  a  fine  of  feathers ;  for  the  second,  they  were  forced 
to  inhale  the  smoke  of  a  certain  herb,  tobacoyay,  which, 
while  painful,  was  not  fatal.8  There  is  nothing  in  these 
methods  of  punishment  to  suggest  a  Jewish  derivation. 

ORNAMENTS. 

The  children  of  Israel  and  the  American  Indians  wore 
ornaments,  and  of  course,  as  no  other  people  have  done 
the  same,  they  must  be  related.  William  Penn  writes  as 


1  "Native  Races,"  Vol.   I.,  p.  350. 

2  Ibid,  p.  390. 

3  Ibid,  p.  412. 

4  Ibid,  p.   510. 

5  Ibid,  p.   660. 

6  Ibid,  p.  464. 

7  Ibid,  p.  658. 

8  Ibid,  p.  673. 


204  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

follows  on  Indian  ornamentation :  "They  wore  ear-rings 
and  nose-jewels;  bracelets  on  their  arms  and  legs;  rings 
on  their  fingers;  necklaces  made  of  highly  polished  shells 
found  in  their  rivers  and  on  their  coasts.  Their  females 
tied  up  their  hair  behind,  worked  bands  around  their 
heads  and  ornamented  them  with  shells  and  feathers,  and 
are  fond  of  strings  of  beads  round  several  parts  of  their 
bodies.  They  use  shells  and  turkey  spurs  around  the 
tops  of  their  moccasins,  to  tinkle  like  little  bells  as  they 
walk." 

And  Jenkins  sees  in  these  Indians,  with  their  orna 
ments  and  finery,  a  wonderful  resemblance  to  the  people 
described  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  (ch.  3:18).  "In  that 
day  the  Lord  will  take  away  the  bravery  of  their  tinkling 
ornaments  about  their  feet,  and  their  cauls,  and  their 
round  tires  like  the  moon,  the  chains,  and  the  bracelets, 
and  the  mufflers,  the  bonnets,  and  the  ornaments  of  the 
legs,  and  the  headbands,  and  the  tablets,  and  the  ear 
rings,  the  rings,  and  the  nose- jewels,  etc.,  etc." 

Of  course  this  is  very  conclusive !  It  need  not  sur 
prise  us  if  before  long  our  Mormon  friends  should  sug 
gest  the  descent  of  the  Fiji  Islanders  and  our  "upper  ten" 
from  the  lost  tribes  for  the  same  reason.  This  argument 
is  devoid  of  both  logic  and  common  sense. 

PURIFICATION   AND   PREPARATORY    CEREMONIES. 

Adair  gives  this  account  of  the  purification  and  pre 
paratory  ceremonies  of  the  American  Indians,  evidently 
of  the  Creeks :  "Before  the  Indians  go  to  war,  they  have 
many  preparatory  ceremonies  of  purification  and  fasting, 
like  what  is  recorded  of  the  Israelites.  When  the  leader 
begins  to  beat  up  for  volunteers,  he  goes  three  times 
round  his  dark  winter  house,  contrary  to  the  course  of  the 
sun,  sounding  the  war-whoop,  singing  the  war-song  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  205 

beating  a  drum.  He  addresses  the  crowd  who  come  about 
him,  and  after  much  ceremony  he  proceeds  to  whoop 
again  for  the  warriors  to  come  and  join  him  and  sanctify 
themselves  for  success  against  the  common  enemy,  ac 
cording  to  their  ancient  religious  law.  A  number  soon 
join  him  in  his  winter  house,  where  they  live  separate 
from  all  others,  and  purify  themselves  for  the  space  of 
three  days  and  three  nights,  exclusive  of  the  first  broken 
day.  On  each  day  they  observe  a  strict  fast  till  sunset, 
watching  the  young  men  very  narrowly  (who  have  not 
been  initiated  in  war  titles),  lest  unusual  hunger  should 
tempt  them  to  violate  it,  to  the  supposed  danger  of  all 
their  lives  in  the  war,  by  destroying  the  power  of  their 
purifying,  beloved  physic,  which  they  drink  plentifully 
during  that  time." — The  Ten  Tribes,  pp.  127,  128. 

Gatschet  describes  the  winter  house  of  the  Creeks  as 
a  building  circular  in  shape  and  about  twenty-five  or 
thirty  feet  in  diameter.  Around  the  wall  was  a  broad, 
circular  seat,  and  in  the  middle,  on  an  elevated  bit  of 
ground,  was  built  the  fire.  From  its  high  temperature 
it  was  called  the  "hot  house,"  and  here  the  braves  came 
to  take  their  religious  sweats.  The  preparation  for  war 
consisted  in  drinking  war-physic,  made  from  snakeroot, 
and  singing  war  and  charm  songs,  under  the  leadership 
of  conjurers,  who,  they  claimed,  thus  gave  them  power 
over  their  enemies. 

The  children  of  Israel,  before  going  to  battle,  were 
wont  to  consult  Jehovah  through  their  prophets  and  the 
Urim  and  Thummim,  offer  sacrifices  and  prepare  them 
selves  by  fasting  and  prayer;  but  we  are  not  informed 
that  they  assembled  their  armies  with  the  war-whoop, 
drank  war-physic,  went  through  a  religious  sweat  or 
learned  charm-songs.  So  much  for  this  analogy 


206  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

ARK   OF   THE    COVENANT. 

Elder  Stebbins  has  taken  the  following  description  of 
the  Indian  "ark  of  the  covenant"  from  Haines'  "Ameri 
can  Indian" :  "It  is  also  insisted  by  many,  as  further  evi 
dence  showing  the  Jewish  origin  of  the  American  Indian, 
that  they  have  had  their  imitation  of  the  ark  of  the  cove 
nant  in  ancient  Israel.  Rev.  Ethan  Smith  says  that  dif 
ferent  travelers,  and  from  different  regions,  unite  in  this, 
and  he  refers  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Aclair  is  full  in  his  ac 
count  of  it.  He  describes  it  as  a  small  square  box,  made 
convenient  to  carry  on  the  back ;  that  the  Indians  never 
set  it  on  the  ground,  but  on  rocks  (logs?)  in  low  ground, 
where  stones  were  not  to  be  had,  and  on  stones  where 
they  are  to  be  found." — Lectures,  p.  248. 

Adair,  in  his  description  of  this  ark,1  tells  us  that  it 
was  covered  with  "drest  deer  skin  and  placed  on  a  couple 
of  short  blocks."  He  states  that  a  certain  gentleman  of 
his  acquaintance  saw  a  very  importunate  stranger  who 
was  very  anxious  to  view  the  contents,  when  the  Indian 
"centinel"  drew  his  bow  and  would  have  shot  him 
through  had  he  not  suddenly  withdrawn.  When  this 
gentleman  asked  the  interpreter  what  this  box  contained, 
he  told  him  that  there  was  nothing  in  it  but  a  "bundle 
of  conjuring  traps."  This  ark,  then,  turns  out  to  be  only 
a  so-called  "medicine-box."  It  also  seems  that  the  cane 
boxes  in  which  some  tribes  carried  the  bones  of  their 
dead  were  mistaken  for  arks.  Brinton  says :  "Instead  of 
interring  the  bones,  were  they  those  of  some  distinguished 
chieftain,  they  were  deposited  in  the  temples  or  the  coun 
cil-houses,  usually  in  small  chests  of  cane  or  splints.  Such 
were  the  charnel-houses  which  the  historians  of  De  Soto's 
expedition  so  often  mentioned,  and  these  are  the  'arks' 

1  "Nineteenth  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  503. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  207 

which  Adair  and  other  authors,  who  have  sought  to  trace 
the  descent  of  the  Indians  from  the  Jews,  have  likened  to 
that  which  the  ancient  Israelites  bore  with  them  on  their 
migrations." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  296.  Com 
ment  is  unnecessary. 

SANCTUM  SANCTORUM. 

"As  the  Jews  had  a  sanctum  sanctorum,  or  the  most 
holy  place,  in  their  tabernacle  and  temple,  so  have  all  the 
Indian  nations,  particularly  the  Muskogee  nation.  It  is 
partitioned  off  by  a  mud  wall,  about  breast  high,  between 
the  white  seat  which  always  stands  on  the  left  of  the  red 
painted  war-seat.  There  they  deposit  their  consecrated 
vessels  and  supposed  holy  utensils,  none  of  the  laity  dar 
ing  to  approach  the  sacred  place  for  fear  of  particular 
damage  to  themselves,  and  a  general  hurt  to  the  people, 
from  the  supposed  divinity  of  the  place." — The  Ten 
Tribes,  p.  149. 

Gatschet  ("A  Migration  Legend  of  the  Creeks,"  Vol. 
I.,  pp.  171-174)  gives  a  very  good  description  of  this 
"sanctum  sanctorum"  of  the  Creeks,  made  up  from  the 
accounts  of  Swan,  Milfort  and  Hawkins,  and  from  him 
I  draw  the  following  facts,  leaving  the  reader  to  decide 
whether  or  not  the  sacred  place  of  this  tribe  bears  any 
resemblance  whatever  to  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  Jews. 
Their  great  house,  tchuku  lako,  was  formed  by  four  shed- 
like  buildings  opening  inward  and  placed  so  as  to  form 
an  inclosed  square.  Each  building  faced  one  of  the  car 
dinal  points  of  the  compass  and  was  divided  into  three 
apartments,  or  cabins,  by  low  clay  partitions.  In  each 
apartment  there  were  three  seats,  or  platforms,  rising 
one  above  another,  the  first  being  two  feet  above  the 
ground,  the  second  eight  feet  above  the  first,  and  the 
third  eight  feet  above  the  second.  Over  these  were 


208  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

thrown  mats  of  cane  and  each  would  seat  from  forty  to 
sixty  persons.  Hawkins  says  that  the  northern  building 
was  for  the  warriors ;  the  eastern,  for  the  young  people ; 
the  southern,  for  the  beloved  men ;  and  the  western,  for 
the  chiefs  and  people  of  high  rank.  The  last  was  also 
their  sanctum  sanctorum,  and  here,  according  to  both 
Swan  and  Jenkins,  they  made  their  war-physic,  black- 
drink  and  kept  their  chaplets,  eagle-tails,  pipe  of  peace 
and  stored  lumber.  In  the  center  of  the  inclosed  area, 
which  was  known  as  consecrated  ground,  a  perpetual  fire 
was  kept  burning,  fed  by  four  logs  and  attended  by  men 
specially  appointed  for  that  purpose. 

The  Jewish  tabernacle  was  a  rectangular  structure 
45  feet  long,  15  feet  wide  and  15  feet  high,  sided  with 
boards  of  acacia  wood.  One-third  of  the  inclosed  space  on 
the  west  end  was  called  the  Holy  of  Holies,  the  other  two- 
thirds  the  Holy  Place.  A  veil  separated  the  two  apart 
ments.  Within  the  inner  sanctuary  was  the  ark  of  the 
covenant  containing  the  tables  of  the  covenant,  and  here, 
on  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month,  the  high  priest 
appeared  with  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  which  he  "offered 
for  himself  and  for  the  sins  of  the  people."  It  requires 
an  eye  long  trained  by  a  determination  to  prove  the  Jew 
ish  theory  to  observe  in  the  great  house  of  the  Muskogee 
Indians  any  similarity  whatever  to  the  tabernacle  of  the 
children  of  Israel. 

BURIAL   OF   THE  DEAD. 

On  the  manner  of  burial  among  the  American  In 
dians,  and  its  resemblance  to  the  Jewish,  Jenkins  says: 
"If  any  one  dies  at  a  distance  and  they  are  not  pursued 
by  an  enemy,  they  place  the  corpse  on  a  scaffold,  secured 
from  wild  beasts  and  fowls  of  prey.  When  they  imagine 
the  flesh  is  consumed,  and  the  bones  dried,  they  return 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  209 

to  the  place,  bring  them  home  and  inter  them  in  a  very 
solemn  manner.  The  Hebrews,  in  like  manner,  carefully 
buried  their  dead,  but,  on  any  accident,  they  gathered 
their  bones,  and  laid  them  in  the  tombs  of  their  fore 
fathers." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  133. 

He  then  cites  the  burial  of  the  bones  of  Joseph  which 
were  brought  by  the  Israelites  from  the  land  of  Egypt. 

But  there  are  but  very  few  particular  resemblances 
to  the  Jewish  in  the  burial  customs  of  the  American 
Indians.  It  was  a  practice  with  a  number  of  tribes  to 
inter  their  dead  temporarily,  until  after  the  flesh  had 
decayed  away,  when  the  bones  were  gathered,  carefully 
scraped  and  placed  in  the  "bone  house"  until  it  was  full, 
when  they  were  all  buried  in  a  common  sepulchre.  The 
Jesuits  observed  this  custom  among  the  tribes  of  Canada, 
and  it  was  practiced  by  the  Choctaws  and  other  southern 
tribes.  This  is  the  practice  that  is  cited  as  a  Jewish 
analogy. 

Dr.  H.  C.  Yarrow,  in  his  excellent  paper,  "Study  of 
the  Mortuary  Customs  of  the  North  American  Indians," 
in  the  "First  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnol 
ogy,"  gives  seven  general  methods  pursued  by  the  Amer 
ican  Indians  in  disposing  of  their  dead,  none  of  them 
similar  exclusively  to  the  Jewish. 

"i.  By  inhumation  in  pits,  graves  or  holes  in  the 
ground,  stone  graves  or  cists,  in  mounds,  beneath  or  in 
cabins,  wigwams,  houses  or  lodges,  or  in  caves. 

"2.  By  embalmment  or  a  process  of  mummifying,  the 
remains  being  afterwards  placed  in  the  earth,  caves, 
mounds,  boxes  on  scaffolds  or  in  charnel-houses. 

"3.  By  deposition  of  remains  in  urns. 

"4.  By  surface  burial,  the  remains  being  placed  in 
hollow  trees  or  logs,  pens,  or  simply  covered  with  earth, 
or  bark,  or  rocks,  forming  cairns. 


210  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

"5.  By  cremation,  or  partial  burning,  generally  on  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  occasionally  beneath,  the  resulting 
bones  or  ashes  being  placed  in  pits  in  the  ground,  in 
boxes  placed  on  scaffolds  or  trees,  in  urns,  sometimes 
scattered. 

"6.  By  aerial  sepulture,  the  bodies  being  left  in  lodges, 
houses,  cabins,  tents,  deposited  on  scaffolds  or  trees,  in 
boxes  or  canoes,  the  two  latter  receptacles  supported  on 
scaffolds  or  posts,  or  placed  on  the  ground.  Occasionally 
baskets  have  been  used  to  contain  the  remains  of  chil 
dren,  these  being  hung  to  trees. 

"7.  By  aquatic  burial,  beneath  the  water,  or  in  canoes, 
which  were  turned  adrift." 

Among  the  Jews  the  burial  usually  took  place  the 
same  day  that  the  person  died.  The  common  manner  of 
burial  was  in  vaults,  natural  or  artificial  excavations  in 
the  earth  or  rock.  Such  methods  of  disposing  of  the 
dead  as  by  cremation,  or  by  depositing  them  on  scaffolds, 
in  hollow  logs  or  by  setting  them  adrift  in  canoes,  were 
not  practiced  by  the  people  of  Palestine.  The  usual  pos 
ture  in  which  the  Indian  buried  his  dead  was  the  squat 
ting;  in  Palestine  the  body  was  usually  laid  upon  its 
back. 

Reader,  these  are  the  analogies  cited  by  Mormon 
writers  to  prove  that  the  American  Indians  are  descend 
ants  of  the  children  of  Israel.  Mr.  Stebbins,  after  giving 
them  all,  either  in  his  own  or  in  the  language  of  another, 
says :  "Many  more  evidences  might  be  presented,  but  it 
seems  needless ;  for  enough  proof  has  been  given  to  sat 
isfy  all  just  demands  for  evidence  that  the  native  Ameri 
cans  were  descendants  from  the  Hebrew  tribes." — Lec 
tures,  p.  256.  Some  people  are  easily  satisfied. 

Out  of  the  entire  number  of  analogies  cited,  there  are 
but  two  that  are  sufficiently  close  to  cause  any  comment. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  211 

These  are  the  custom  of  the  separation  of  women  and  the 
institution  of  the  "peace  town,"  which  bear  a  somewhat 
close  similarity  to  a  practice  and  an  institution  among  the 
Jews.  The  rest,  when  carefully  followed  out,  which  the 
Mormons  dare  not  do  in  their  works,  turn  out  to  be  so 
slight  that  most  of  them  need  a  good  deal  of  touching  up 
to  make  the  supposed  Hebrew  features  apparent.  But 
what  do  the  two  analogies  mentioned  prove?  Nothing; 
for  more  than  to  counterbalance  them  we  have  the  native 
peculiarities  in  physique,  religion,  custom,  habit  and  be 
lief  which  can  not  be  harmonized  with  this  theory  of 
descent.  Therefore  we  must  look  upon  them  as  purely 
natural  coincidences  which  count  for  nothing  and  prove 
nothing. 

The  importance  of  these  so-called  analogies  as  evi 
dence  vanishes  when  we  come  to  consider  that  there  are 
as  many  points  of  resemblance  between  the  Indians  and 
other  peoples  as  there  are  between  them  and  the  children 
of  Israel.  And  this  shows  that  by  this  argument  they 
can  be  connected  with  almost  every  race,  under  the  sun. 
Bradford  devotes  an  entire  chapter  (Chapter  X.)  of  his 
work,  "American  Antiquities,"  to  these  analogies,  and 
cites  a  great  number  between  the  American  Indians  and 
the  Celts,  inhabitants  of  Madagascar,  Etrurians,  Egyp 
tians,  Hindoos,  Mongols,  Chinese  and  Malays. 

The  inhabitants  of  Madagascar,  he  says,  are  physic 
ally  approximated  to  the  red  race ;  they  are  divided  into 
tribes ;  they  trace  their  descent  in  the  female  line  (a 
custom  so  distinctly  American  that  it  exceeds  in  impor 
tance  and  force  any  analogy  that  the  advocates  of  the 
Jewish  theory  have  ever  cited)  ;  they  revere  the  dead; 
they  scrape  the  flesh  from  the  bones  of  the  corpse;  they 
bury  the  weapons  of  war  and  the  wealth  of  the  deceased 
with  him ;  they  erect  tumuli  over  their  graves ;  they  sur- 


212  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

round  their  towns  with  embankments ;  they  attribute  dis 
ease  to  the  agency  of  evil  spirits,  and  they  practice 
divination. 

The  Mongols,  like  the  Americans,  are  fond  of  danc 
ing  ;  use  the  bow ;  girdle  trees ;  practice  polygamy ;  pur 
chase  their  wives ;  suspend  their  dead  from  the  branches 
of  trees  or  place  them  on  scaffolds;  tattoo;  wear  moc 
casins;  are  fond  of  smoking;  shave  their  heads,  with  the 
exception  of  the  scalplock;  practice  scalping;  sacrifice 
dogs;  use  the  vapor  bath;  bury  their  dead  in  a  sitting 
posture ;  wear  plumes ;  store  corn  in  the  ground ;  use  the 
fire-drill;  make  use  of  the  quippu;  prohibit  the  marriage 
of  persons  of  the  same  clan,  and  preserve  the  skulls  of 
their  enemies. 

And  the  Malays,  like  the  Americans,  use  the  quippu ; 
tattoo;  compress  the  heads  of  their  infants;  bury  their 
dead  in  a  sitting  posture ;  embalm  and  exsiccate  the  body ; 
preserve  skulls ;  have  amulets  and  charms ;  wear  masks 
in  their  religious  ceremonies ;  use  poisoned  arrows,  and 
put  to  death  the  relatives  of  the  deceased. 

These  analogies  are  as  striking  as  any  that  have  been 
pointed  out  between  the  Indians  and  the  Jews,  and  if  the 
Jewish  analogies  prove  a  Jewish  descent,  the  Madagas- 
caran,  Mongolian  and  Malayan  analogies  prove  a  Mada- 
gascaran,  Mongolian  and  Malayan  descent.  And  this 
would  be  fatal  to  the  theory  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

A  number  of  forceful  objections  may  also  be  raised 
against  the  opinion  that  the  American  Indians  are  of 
Jewish  descent. 

I.  There  is  positively  no  physical  likeness  between  the 
two  peoples.  They  are  unlike  in  the  form  of  their  skulls, 
generally  speaking,  in  physiognomy,  in  complexion  and 
in  color  and  texture  of  hair.  Says  Bradford:  "More 
over,  the  physical  types  of  the  two  races  are  essentially 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  213 

different,  and  we  know  of  no  effect  of  climate  by  which 
the  Hebrew  could  have  been  transformed  into  the  red 
and  beardless  American." — American  Antiquities,  p.  240. 

2.  The  American  tribes  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Ant 
arctic  possess  no  traces  of  a  former  belief  in  one  God  or 
a  monotheistic  worship,  all  reports  to  the  contrary  being 
false,  as  proved  by  the  researches  of  such  critical  eth 
nologists    as    Gallatin,    Tylor,    Parkman,    Brinton    and 
Powell.     The  highest   form  of  theism  in  America  was 
polytheism,    the   more    civilized   nations    all    having   ex 
tensive  pantheons. 

3.  Israelitish  society,  in   its  structure,  was   radically 
different  from  American  society.     In  Palestine  the  social 
unit  was  the  family ;  in  America  it  was  the  gens  or  clan. 
A  gens  is  defined  by  Powell  to  be  "an  organized  body  of 
consanguineal  kindred  in  the  female  line."     A  clan  was 
such  a  body  tracing  descent  in  the  male  line.     Descent, 
however,  in  the  female  line  was  far  more  common,  and 
Brinton   mentions   the   Algonkins,    Iroquois,    Cherokees, 
Chata    Muskokis,    Catawbas,    Natchez,    Mandans,    Min- 
netarees   and   Kolosch   as   practicing   it.      Frequently   a 
number  of  gentes  made  up  a  phratry,  or  brotherhood, 
and  a  number  of  these  composed  the  tribe,  as  with  the 
Wyandots,  who  were  divided  into  eleven  gentes,  com 
posing   four   phratries,   and   the   whole   constituting  the 
tribe.1    This  social  peculiarity  is  radical  and  fundamental 
and  is  hard  to  be  accounted   for  if  the   Indians  are  of 
Israel.    Why  they  should  have  lost  all  traces  of  a  former 
Jewish  social  polity  and  should  have  retained  a  numbef 
of  unimportant  customs  is  inexplicable. 

4.  The  American  languages  have  no  affinity  whatever 
with  the  Hebrew.     They  belong  to  an  entirely  different 


1  "The   American   Race,"  p.   45. 


214  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

linguistic  group.  Besides,  their  diversity  is  so  great  as 
positively  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  derivation  from 
that  source  at  least  at  as  recent  a  date  as  600  B.  C. 

5.  No  authentic  Hebrew  relics  have  ever  been  found 
in  America.     The  "Newark  Tablet,"   with   its   Hebrew 
inscription  and  its  "truculent  likeness"  of  Moses,  which 
created  such  a  stir  in  archaeological  circles  forty  years 
ago,   is   proved   to   be   a    fraud,   perpetrated   by   David 
Wyrick,  a  half-crazed  surveyor  of  Newark,  Ohio,  who, 
disappointed  at  not  finding  evidence  of  the  Jewish  origin 
of   the   American    Indians,    determined   to    manufacture 
some.     Although  the  fraudulent  character  of  this  tablet 
has  been  unquestionably  established,  Mormon  writers  and 
speakers  persist  in  referring  to  it  as  though  its  character 
had  never  been  questioned.1 

6.  There  is  no  evidence  by  which  to  prove  that  the 
American  nations  ever  reached  the  culture  status  of  the 
Hebrews.    They  did  not  use  either  iron  or  steel  and  they 
were  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  use  of  the  plummets.2 

7.  It  is  certain  that  the  builders  of  the  ancient  cities 
of  Central  America  and  Mexico  and  the  mounds  of  the 
United  States  did  not  have  the  horse  and  other  domestic 
animals  mentioned  in  the   Book  of  Mormon,   for  their 
remains  have  never  been  found  among  any  of  the  an 
tiquities,  neither  have  their  forms  been  etched  or  carved 
on  any  relic  so  far  discovered.     That  the  horse  was  an 
inhabitants  of  .the  New  World  before  Columbus  I  do  not 
deny,  for  its  remains  have  been  found  in  the  deposits  of 
the  earlier  ages,  but  that  it  was  here  during  the  time  that 
the  cities  of  Central  America  and  the  mounds  of  the  Mis- 


1  "Joseph    the    Seer,"    pp.    155-160.      "The    Book    Unsealed,"    pp.    28-31. 
"Truth   Defended,"   pp.    130,    131.      "Book   of  Mormon   Lectures,"   pp.    255, 
256.      "Parsons'    Text-book,"    pp.    25,   26. 

2  "Essays   of   an    Americanist,"    p.    442. 


CUMORAH  .  REVISITED  215 

sissippi  Valley  were  being  built  I  deny,  as  there  is  no 
evidence  whatever  to  sustain  it. 

8.  The  aboriginal   arts,   customs,   habits,   ceremonies 
and  institutions  of  the  American  race  bear  the  marks  of 
utter  barbarism    and  of   their   indigenous    development. 
The  slight  similarities  to  the  arts,  customs,  habits,  cere 
monies  and  institutions  of  the  Old  World  which  appear 
fade  away  before  a  careful,  scientific  comparison.     They 
are  found  to  have  no  connection  with  each  other  and  are 
to  be  explained  as  purely  natural  coincidences. 

9.  The  myths  and  traditions  of  the  Americans  that 
have  come  down  to  us  are  so  different  from  those  of 
Hebrew  lore  that  no  student  of  to-day  assigns  to  them  a 
Hebrew  origin.    Let  the  reader  consult  Brinton's  "Myths 
of  the  New  World,"  and  the  truthfulness  of  this  asser 
tion  will  be  observed. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  I  contend  that  it  can  not 
be  maintained  that  the  American  Indians  are  of  Jewish 
descent,  as  claimed  in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 


216  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER    V. 

Were  the  Ancient  Central  Americans  and  Mexicans  the  Jaredites 
and  Nephites? — The  Color  of  the  Ancient  Central  Americans 
and  Mexicans — The  Culture  of  the  First  Inhabitants  of 
Central  America — The  Direction  of  Migration  of  the  Ancient 
Peoples — The  Contact  of  the  Ancient  Central  Americans  and 
Mexicans — The  First  Civilized  People  Not  Exterminated — 
The  Extent  of  the  Ancient  Empires — Traditional  History  of 
the  Toltecs. 

The  ancient  civilization  of  Central  America  and  Mex 
ico  is  to  be  ascribed  to  two  distinct  peoples,  the  Mayas 
and  Nahuas.  That  there  were  other  tribes  which  pos 
sessed  considerable  advancement  is  not  to  be  doubted, 
but,  as  these  exerted  the  widest  influence  and  played  the 
leading  parts  in  those  regions,  antiquarians  are  wont  to 
divide  primitive  culture  into  two  branches,  the  Mayan 
and  Nahuan. 

Bancroft  says:  "Notwithstanding  evident  marks  of 
similarity  in  nearly  all  the  manifestations  of  the  progres- 
sional  spirit  in  aboriginal  America,  in  art,  thought  and 
religion,  there  is  much  reason  for  and  convenience  in 
referring  all  the  native  civilization  to  two  branches,  the 
Maya  and  the  Nahua,  the  former  the  more  ancient,  the 
latter  the  more  recent  and  widespread." — Native  Races, 
Vol.  II.,  pp.  90,  91. 

And  Short  says  of  these  peoples:  "The  venerable 
civilization  of  the  Mayas,  whose  forest-grown  cities  and 
crumbling  temples  hold  entombed  a  history  of  vanished 
glory,  no  doubt  belongs  to  the  remotest  period  of  North 
American  antiquity.  It  was  old  when  the  Nahuas,  then 
a  comparatively  rude  people,  first  came  in  contact  with 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  217 

it,  adopted  many  of  its  features,  and  grafted  upon  it  new 
life." — North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  519. 

Whether  or  not  these  peoples  were  related  is  not 
known.  They  differed  widely  from  one  another  in  lan 
guage,  monuments  and  hieroglyphics,  and  their  points  of 
resemblance  .were  only  such  as  could  be  due  to  contact; 
hence  ethnologists  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that,  if  these 
stocks  are  related,  their  separation  from  one  another 
must  have  occurred  at  a  very  late  date,  after  which  they 
developed  their  culture  in  different  channels. 

The  Mayas  are  supposed  to  have  come  originally  from 
the  north.  They  are  known  to  some  writers  as  the  Col- 
huas,  and  these  apply  the  name  Maya  only  to  that  branch 
of  their  descendants  who  inhabit  Yucatan.  Tradition  an:! 
archaeology  agree  in  affirming  that  they  were  the  builders 
of  the  cities  of  Yucatan  not  only,  but  also  of  the  more 
ancient  cities  of  Palenque,  Copan  and  Quirigua  in  Chi 
apas,  Honduras  and  Guatemala. 

The  Nahuas  were  an  enterprising  branch  of  the  great 
Uto-Aztecan  family.  Their  traditions  say  that  they  en 
tered  Mexico  and  Central  America  after  the  Mayas, 
coming  from  the  north.  Their  history  is  usually  divided 
into  four  periods  or  epochs :  the  pre-Toltecan,  previous 
to  the  sixth  century ;  the  Toltecan,  from  the  sixth  to  the 
eleventh  century ;  the  Chichimecan,  from  the  eleventh  to 
the  fifteenth  century,  and  the  Aztecan,  from  the  fifteenth 
century  to  the  Spanish  Conquest.1  The  Toltecs,  accord 
ing  to  tradition,  were  their  most  cultured  and  progressive 
tribe,  and  the  Aztec  bards  never  tired  of  singing  of  their 
golden  age.  Dr.  Brinton  denies  that  the  Toltecs,  as  they 
are  commonly  described,  ever  existed,  and  claims  that 
they  were  only  an  unimportant  gens  of  the  Azteca.2 

"Native  Races,"  Vol.  V.,  pp.    157,   158. 
2  "Essays  of  an  Americanist,"  pp.  83-100. 


218  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Most  ethnologists,  however,  do  not  share  in  this  conclu 
sion,  and  consider  them  a  bona-fidc  tribe. 

Mormon  writers  declare  that  the  ancient  civilized 
peoples  of  Central  America  and  Mexico,  those  who 
erected  the  prehistoric  cities  of  those  regions,  were  the 
Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

Elder  Stebbins  says:  "And  when  they  come  forward 
and  tell  us  that  the  more  ancient  ruins  were  built  upon 
by  a  people  later,  whose  manners  of  construction  and 
of  architecture  were  different  from  those  of  the  former 
people,  showing  that  there  were  two  civilizations  and  two 
periods  in  the  history  of  the  country,  what  can  I  say  but 
that  they  were  the  Jaredites  and  the  Nephites,  just  as  the 
Book  of  Mormon  tells  us  they  were?" — Book  of  Mormon 
Lectures,  p.  45. 

Elder  Etzenhouser,  another  Mormon  archaeologist., 
writes:  "We  have  now  presented  Short,  Pidgeon  and 
Bancroft,  three  eminent  authorities,  on  there  having  been 
two  distinct  peoples,  and  who  preceded  the  aborigines  of 
America,  in  the  possession  of  this  land,  which  supports 
-the  claim  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  for  the  Jaredite  and 
Nephite  colonizations." — The  Book  Unsealed,  p.  10. 

And  Miss  Louise  Palfrey  says:  "The  only  theory 
that  will  agree  with  all  the  facts  and  circumstances  of 
archaeological  source,  and  that  is  compelled  to  invent  no 
excuses,  overlook  or  discard  no  prominent  feature  of 
tradition,  relic  or  ruin,  is  that  there  were  two  distinct 
civilizations  before  the  time  of  the  Aztecs  and  the 
Incas,  one  preceding  the  other  and  confining  its  limits 
to  North  America,  while  the  seat  of  its  highest  develop 
ment,  hence  its  greatest  age,  was  in  Central  America." 
— Divinity  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  Proven  by  Archaeol 
ogy,  p.  178. 

But  the  fact  that  research  has  shown  that  two  distinct 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  219 

peoples  controlled,  in  ancient  times,  the  regions  where 
the  principal  ruins  are  found,  in  numerical  agreement 
with  the  Book  of  Mormon,  is  not  in  itself  sufficient  to 
prove  that  they  were  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites,  the 
point  these  writers  so  gratuitously  assume.  There  are 
several  forceful  objections  that  must  be  removed  before 
Jared  can  be  identified  with  Votan,  or  the  land  of  Moron 
be  proved  to  have  been  the  empire  of  Xibalba,  or  the 
Nephites  be  identified  with  the  Toltecs. 

But  I  am  ready  to  grant  that,  if  the  Jaredites  and 
Nephites  are  to  be  identified  with  any  New  World 
nations  at  all,  they  must  be  with  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas, 
for  these  peoples,  judging  by  the  monuments,  came  the 
nearest  to  reaching  the  stage  of  culture  described  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon  of  any  nation  in  America,  with  the  ex 
ception  possibly  of  the  Peruvians,  and  their  history 
covers  at  least  a  portion  of  the  time  in  which  the  Book  of 
Mormon  claims  that  those  regions  in  which  they  were 
located  were  inhabited  by  its  peoples. 

If  the  identification  which  Mormon  writers  make  of 
the  builders  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Central  America  and 
Mexico  with  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites  be  well  founded, 
the  ethnologist  is  confronted  with  a  number  of  facts 
which  will  materially  affect  many  of  the  conclusions  at 
which  he  has  arrived.  If  these  authors  are  correct,  the 
following  conclusions  are  true :  the  distant  ancestors  of 
the  Aztecs,  Mayas,  Quiches  and  Cakchiquels  were  of  the 
Caucasian  race;  the  Colhuas,  or  Mayas,  were  the  first 
inhabitants  of  the  American  continent,  and  came  bring 
ing  with  them  the  civilization  of  the  Old  World;  they 
were  totally  exterminated,  after  sixteen  centuries,  in  a 
long  and  disastrous  war,  the  last  battle  of  which  was 
fought  in  western  New  York ;  they  were  succeeded,  after 
a  few  centuries,  by  the  Toltecs,  or  Nahuas,  who  came 


220  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

from  South  America;  the  governments  of  the  two  peo 
ples  were  not  confined  in  their  jurisdiction  to  Mexico  and 
Central  America  alone,  but  the  northern  boundary  line 
of  both  was  extended  northward  as  far  as  the  Great 
Lakes,  while  the  southern  boundary  line  of  the  second 
lay  as  far  south,  at  least,  as  the  southern  limits  of 
Colombia;  the  two  nations  were  here  consecutively  and 
not  at  the  same  time;  and  the  empire  of  the  first  came 
to  an  end  in  600  B.  C,  while  that  of  the  second  ended 
about  400  A.  D.  These  are  some  of  the  conclusions  that 
must  be  reached  if  the  "two  distinct  peoples"  of  Bancroft 
and  Short  were  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

But,  on  these  conclusions,  archaeologists  will  not  agree 
with  Mormon  writers ;  every  one  of  them  is  contradicted 
by  the  facts  derived  from  the  traditions  of  the  people  and 
from  archaeological  research. 

THERE    IS    PROOF    THAT    THE    ANCIENT    RACES    OF    CENTRAL 

AMERICA  AND    MEXICO   WERE   IDENTICAL   WITH 

THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN. 

The  Mayas  and  Aztecs,  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish 
Conquest,  were  described  as  well-formed  races  of  a 
tawny  color.  As  they  were  erecting  the  same  kinds  of 
edifices,  using  the  same  kinds  of  hieroglyphics,  worship 
ing  the  same  gods,  practicing  the  same  arts  and  com 
puting  time  by  means  of  the  same  calendar  system  as 
their  predecessors,  we  set  out  with  the  presumption  that 
they  were  like  them  in  color  and  physical  features — the 
same  race.  And  this  presumption  can  only  be  set  aside 
by  well-founded,  not  inferential,  evidence. 

These  tribes  had  well-preserved  traditions  of  the  im 
portant  events  in  their  history,  which  reached  back  to, 
at  least,  their  advents  into  the  central  region.  While, 
so  far  as  their  chronology  is  concerned,  these  traditions 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  221 

can  not  be  depended  upon,  many  of  the  events  they 
record  are  known  to  have  transpired  by  the  corrobora 
tory  evidences  of  the  monuments.  The  traditions  tell 
us  of  the  founding  of  the  Maya  and  Toltec  empires,  of 
the  erection  of  their  capital  cities,  of  the  introduction  of 
new  religious  ideas,  of  the  progress  and  prosperity  of 
the  people  and  of  the  subsequent  breaking  up  of  nations 
and  scattering  of  tribes,  all  of  which  accounts  have  been 
fully  corroborated  from  monumental  and  linguistic 
sources.  Yet  not  a  hint  is  thrown  out  in  any  tradition 
that  the  ancestors  of  the  Mexican  and  Central  American 
races  were  white  and  that  they  were  transformed  in  color 
to  coppery  by  a  miracle.  Such  a  miracle,  widely  known 
of  in  420  A.  D.,  could  hardly  have  failed  of  being  trans 
mitted  in  the  traditions  of  the  country  to  the  time  of  the 
Conquest. 

The  crania  of  the  country  present  no  diversities  by 
which  the  ancient  may  be  distinguished  from  the  modern 
races.  The  same  conformations  and  deformations  of 
skull  observed  among  the  tribes  at  the  time  of  the  Con 
quest  are  to  be  seen  in  the  crania  from  the  ancient  burial- 
places.  On  certain  remains  taken  from  the  ancient 
sepulchres  at  Ticul,  Yucatan,  Bancroft  remarks :  "The 
skeletons  and  skulls  dug  up  at  Ticul  were  pronounced  by 
Dr.  Morton  to  belong  to  the  universal  American  type." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  282. 

One  of  the  peculiar  customs  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
part  of  the  continent  was  that  of  flattening  the  fore 
head  by  pressure.  This  practice  was  in  vogue  when 
the  Spaniards  first  came,  and  the  deformation  of  the 
skull  was  looked  upon  as  a  mark  of  beauty  and  refine 
ment.  But  this  same  custom  was  practiced  by  the  ancient 
races,  and  this  would  imply  a  continuity  of  race  from  the 
earliest  times  to  the  present.  "That  it  was  practiced  to  a 


222  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

considerable  extent,"  says  Bancroft,  "in  remote  times  by 
people  inhabiting  the  country,  seems  to  be  shown  by  the 
deformed  skulls  found  in  their  graves,  and  by  the  sculp 
tured  figures  upon  the  ruins." — Native  Races,  Vol.  II., 
p.  281. 

Another  evidence  of  the  ethnical  identity  of  the 
ancient  and  modern  inhabitants  is  in  the  faces  sculptured 
in  profile  upon  the  monuments  of  the  country.  That  these 
are  the  faces  of  the  native  population  is  not  to  be  doubted, 
while  their  dress,  ornamentation  and  attitude  indicate  that 
they  are  representations  of  priests,  warriors  and  states 
men. 

Galindo  says  of  the  carved  faces  on  the  monuments 
of  Palenque:  "The  physiognomies  of  the  human  figure  in 
alto  relievo  indicate  that  they  represent  a  race  not  differ 
ing  from  the  modern  Indians ;  they  were,  perhaps,  taller 
than  the  latter,  who  are  of  a  middle  or  rather  small  stat 
ure,  compared  with  Europeans." — Travels  in  Mexico,  p. 

163. 

The  bas-reliefs  of  Yucatan  are  also  declared  by  Na- 
daillac  to  show  features  plainly  Indian.  "The  bas-reliefs 
are  remarkable ;  all  the  faces  are  of  the  present  Yucatan 
type,  and  contrast  strongly  with  the  pointed  heads  and 
retreating  foreheads  represented  at  Palenque,  and  which 
are  said  to  be  still  met  with  amongst  the  inferior  moun 
tain  races." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  341. 

Reclus,  in  speaking  of  these  same  bas-reliefs,  re 
marks:  "The  type  of  such  figures  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  present  natives,  especially  the  Eastern  Lancandons, 
except  that  it  is  highly  exaggerated,  especially  in  the 
temples  of  Palenque." — The  Earth  and  Its  Inhabitants, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  160. 

Again,  the  figures  that  these  ancient  peoples  moulded 
of  themselves  out  of  clay  possess  Indian  physiognomies. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  223 

Certain  of  these  images  from  the  mounds  of  Zachila, 
Oajaca  and  Cuilapa  are  said  by  Bancroft  to  agree  in 
features  with  the  Zapotecs,  the  present  inhabitants  of 
those  localities.  "Those  figures  which  are  moulded  in 
human  form  agree  in  features  with  the  Zapotec  features 
of  modern  times." — Native  Races,  Vcl.  IV.,  p.  376. 

And,  lastly,  as  indicative  of  the  direct  relationship  of 
the  ancient  and  modern  races,  we  have  their  paintings  in 
which  the  human  figure  is  painted  reddish  brown.  Says 
Short:  "Blue,  red,  yellow  and  green  are  the  colors  em 
ployed,  though  the  human  figures  are  painted  reddish 
brown." 

With  these  facts  before  him,  the  reader  will  observe 
that  archaeological  evidence  is  opposed  to  the  theory  that 
the  ancient  peoples,  those  who  built  the  cities  of  Central 
America  and  Mexico,  were  of  the  Caucasian  race. 

THE    FIRST    PEOPLE    OF    CENTRAL    AMERICA    WERE    SAVAGES 
OF  THE  LOWEST  TYPE. 

This  is  directly  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  and  to  the  theory  of  its  defenders,  according 
to  which  the  first  Americans  were  highly-civilized  immi 
grants  from  the  Tower  of  Babel.  Apostle  Kelley  says 
of  them:  "They  brought  with  them  the  civilization,  the 
arts,  sciences,  habits,  customs,  traditions  and  language 
of  their  day  and  time." — Presidency  and  Priesthood,  p. 

258. 

They  are  said  to  have  landed  upon  the  east  coast  of 
Central  America,  "near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Motagua," 
and  to  have  "finally  fixed  their  capital  (Moron)  at  what 
is  now  known  as  the  ruins  of  Copan  on  the  Copan  River, 
Honduras ;  possibly  it  was  at  Quirigua,  on  the  Motagua 
River,  Guatemala." — Report  of  the  Committee  on  Amer 
ican  Archaeology,  p.  70.  As  the  two  old  Mayan  cities, 


224  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Copan  and  Quirigtia,  stand  about  an  equal  show  with  the 
Committee  of  being  Moron,  it  is  evident  that  they  look 
upon  the  ancient  Mayas  as  being  identical  with  the 
Jaredites. 

But  the  theory  that  the  first  inhabitants  of  Honduras 
and  Guatemala  were  civilized  peoples  is  opposed  by  the 
traditions  of  the  natives.  Votan,  the  white  and  bearded 
civilizer,  who  is  said  to  have  come  from  over  the  sea,  is 
declared  to  have  found  that  country  inhabited  by  a  race 
of  people  known  under  the  general  name  of  Chichimecs, 
"dogs,"  who  were  savage?  of  the  lowest  type,  building 
no  cities,  having  no  agriculture,  eating  their  meat  raw, 
and,  for  refuge  from  the  storms,  fleeing  to  the  recesses 
of  the  forests  and  to  the  caves  of  the  mountains.  And, 
whether  we  consider  Votan  a  real  person  or  a  mytho 
logical  character,  the  fact  remains  the  same,  that  the 
civilized  Mayas  had  savage  predecessors  who  preceded 
them  in  the  valley  of  the  Usumacinta. 

Nadaillac  says :  "The  most  ancient  traditions  made 
him  come  from  a  land  of  shadow,  beyond  the  seas;  on 
his  arrival,  the  inhabitants  of  the  vast  territories  stretch 
ing  between  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  and  California  lived 
in  a  state  which  may  be  compared  with  that  of  the  people 
of  the  stone  age  of  Europe.  A  few  natural  caves,  huts 
made  of  branches  of  trees,  served  them  as  shelter;  their 
only  garments  were  skins  obtained  in  the  chase ;  they 
lived  upon  wild  fruits,  roots  torn  out  of  the  ground  and 
raw  flesh  of  animals  which  they  devoured  while  still 
bloody." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  264. 

With  this  Baldwin  agrees :  "According  to  these  writ 
ings,  the  country  where 'the  ruins  are  found  was  occu 
pied  in  successive  periods  by  three  distinct  peoples,  the 
Chichimecs,  the  Colhuas  and  the  Toltecs,  or  Nahuas." — 
Ancient  America,  p.  198. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  225 

Of  the  first  people  he  says :  "The  most  ancient  people, 
those  found  in  the  country  by  the  Colhuas,  are  called 
Chichimecs.  They  are  described  as  a  barbarous  people 
who  lived  by  hunting  and  fishing,  and  had  neither  towns 
nor  agriculture." — Ibid. 

The  Committee  on  American  Archaeology  tell  us  that 
the  Colhuas  were  the  Jaredites  and  the  Toltecs  the 
Nephites.  Who,  then,  were  the  Chichimecs,  the  people 
who  were  here  before  the  Colhuas  came? 

THE  CIVILIZED  NATIONS  OF  CENTRAL  AMERICA  AND 
MEXICO   CAME  FROM    THE   NORTH. 

With  the  Book  of  Mormon  the  direction  of  aboriginal 
migration  was  from  south  to  north  in  both  Americas; 
but,  if  we  follow  traditional,  linguistic  and  archaeological 
indications,  we  must  conclude  that  the  ancient  nations  of 
Central  America  and  Mexico  came  from  the  opposite 
direction. 

i.  The  traditions  of  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  declare 
that  they  came  originally  from  a  more  northern  latitude. 

Brinton  says  of  the  Maya  tradition :  "The  uniform 
assertion  of  these  legends  is  that  the  ancestors  of  the 
stock  came  from  a  more  northern  latitude,  following 
down  the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  This  is  also 
supported  by  the  position  of  the  Huastecs,  who  may  be 
regarded  as  one  of  their  tribes  left  behind  in  the  general 
migration,  and  by  the  tradition  of  the  Nahuas  which 
assigned  them  a  northern  origin." — The  American  Race, 

P-  154. 

Mrs.  Susan  Hale  sums  up  the  accounts  of  the  migra 
tions  of  the  various  pre-Chichimecan  tribes  from  the 
north  in  the  following:  "We  can  not  stop  to  be  very 
much  interested  in  this  rudimentary  people,  called  Qui- 
names,  who  have  left  us  scarcely  more  than  a  name  and 


226  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

little  even  of  legend  to  charm  us.  ...  Whence  they  came, 
therefore,  it  is  vain  to  speculate:  how  long  they  were 
there,  what  manner  of  men  they  were.  A  wave  of  life 
more  civilized  swept  down  upon  them  from  the  north 
and  exterminated  the  whole  race,  so  that  we  have  noth 
ing  more  to  tell  about  them.  The  tribes  which  have  the 
credit  of  destroying  the  giants  bear  the  names  of  Xica- 
lancas  and  Ulmecs.  .  .  .  Next  came  the  Mayas,  still 
always  from  the  north.  Although  they  left  some  traces 
upon  Anahuac,  they,  too,  moved  farther  on,  to  establish 
in  Yucatan  and  the  territory  between  Chiapas  and  Cen 
tral  America  their  greatly  advanced  civilization.  The 
Otomies,  still  with  the  same  northern  origin,  spread 
themselves  very  early  over  the  territory  which  is  now 
occupied  by  the  states  of  San  Luis,  Potosi,  Guanajuato 
and  Queretaro,  reaching  Michoacan,  and  spreading  still 
farther.  .  .  .  Mixtecas  and  Zapotecas  are  names  of  other 
people  who  came  to  occupy  Anahuac,  but  the  Toltecs  are 
the  first  of  these  ancient  tribes  distinguished  for  the 
advancement  of  their  arts  and  civilization,  of  which  their 
monuments  and  the  results  of  excavation  give  abundant 
proof.  The  legends  of  those  tribes  who  came  to  Mexico 
over  the  broad  path  leading  down  from  the  north  refer 
to  an  ancient  home,  of  which  they  retained  a  sad,  vague 
longing,  as  the  Moor  still  dreams  of  the  glories  of  Gren 
ada." — The  Story  of  Mexico,  pp.  18,  19. 

And  Nadaillac  says :  "All  these  men,  whether  Toltecs, 
Chichimecs  or  Aztecs,  believed  that  their  people  came 
from  the  north,  and  migrated  southward,  seeking  more 
fertile  lands,  more  genial  climates,  or,  perhaps,  driven 
before  a  more  warlike  race ;  one  wave  of  emigration  suc 
ceeding  another." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  13. 

So  prevalent  was  this  tradition  among  the  Nahuatl 
tribes  of  the  sixteenth  century  that  even  Bancroft,  who 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  227 

denies  their  northern  origin,  is  forced  to  admit  it.  "It 
is  not  probable,"  he  says,  "that  this  idea  of  a  northern 
origin  was  a  pure  invention  of  the  Spaniards;  they 
doubtless  found  among  the  Aztecs  with  whom  they  came 
in  contact  what  seemed  to  them  a  prevalent  popular 
notion  that  the  ancestors  of  the  race  came  from  the 
north." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  217. 

And  yet  Elder  Walker,  in  the  face  of  this  widely 
stated  tradition,  has  the  boldness  to  say:  "By  the  ruins 
and  traditions,  it  appears  that  the  Olmecs,  Toltecs,  Az 
tecs,  et  al.,  can  be  traced  through  Central  America  to 
Peru." — Ruins  Revisited,  p.  150.  A  statement  that  no 
man  can  truthfully  make  who  is  familiar  with  the  tradi 
tions. 

2.  The  languages  of  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  prove 
that  they  came  originally  from  the  north. 

It  is  an  indisputable  fact  that  both  the  Maya  and 
Nahuatl  tongues  are  related  to  the  tongues  of  tribes  who 
dwell  to  the  northward  and  whose  traditions  declare  that 
they  came  from  regions  still  farther  north.  The  Mayas 
are  connected  with  the  Huastecs  who  reside  on  the  Rio 
Panuco,  and  the  Nahuas  with  the  Sonorans  and  Shosho- 
nians  whose  tribes  are  scattered  as  far  to  the  north  as 
the  Columbia  River. 

On  the  relationship  of  the  Nahuas  to  northern  stocks, 
and  what  this  fact  proves  as  to  their  southerly  move 
ment,  Thomas  writes :  "If  Buschmann  be  correct  in 
uniting  the  Ute  or  Shoshone  group  of  dialects  with  and 
making  them  a  part  of  the  Nahuatl  or  Mexican  stock, 
named  by  Dr.  Brinton  the  'Uto-Aztecan  Stock,'  we  have, 
in  the  spread  of  this  extensive  family,  what  would  seem 
to  be  incontrovertible  evidence  of  the  tendency  in  this 
western  section  to  southern  movements.  Members  of 
this  family  are  scattered  from  the  vicinity  of  the  Colum- 


228  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

bia  River  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama;  and  so  far  as  any 
evidence  has  been  found  in  regard  to  the  movements  of 
the  tribes,  it  indicates  they  were  southward." — American 
Archaeology,  p.  316. 

The  indications  are  that  the  Uto-Aztecan  family,  of 
which  the  Nahuan,  Sonoran  and  Shoshonian  are  the 
branches,  had  its  origin  at  some  point  between  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Great  Lakes.  This  is  the  conclusion 
of  Dr.  Gibbs,  arrived  at  after  an  exhaustive  study,  and 
has  also  been  reached  by  both  Dr.  Brinton  and  Professor 
Thomas,  after  independent  research. 

Brinton  says :  "That  very  careful  student,  Mr.  George 
Gibbs,  from  a  review  of  all  the  indications,  reached  the 
conclusion  that  the  whole  group  came  originally  from 
the  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  chain,  and  that  the 
home  of  its  ancestral  horde  was  somewhere  between 
these  mountains  and  the  Great  Lakes.  This  is  the  opin 
ion  I  have  also  reached  from  an  independent  study  of 
the  subject,  and  I  believe  it  is  as  near  as  we  can  get  to 
the  birthplace  of  this  important  stock." — The  American 
Race,  p.  121. 

Of  the  branches  of  this  stock,  the  Nahuas  were  the 
first  to  move  southward,  stopping  for  some  time  in  the 
region  of  the  Gila,  where  they  created  the  germ  of  that 
culture  which  afterwards  reached  its  highest  point  of 
development  in  central  and  southern  Mexico,  and  then 
poured  down  upon  Anahuac  in  successive  waves,  the 
Olmecs  and  Xicalancas  leading,  then  the  Toltecs,  then 
the  Chichimecs,  and,  lastly,  the  Aztecs  and  kindred  tribes. 
The  great  Nahuan  branch  was  followed  by  the  Sonoran, 
which  dwelt,  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery,  in  the  States 
of  Sonora,  Sinaloa,  Chihuahua  and  Durango ;  while  the 
Shoshonians  came  last  and  took  up  their  residence  en 
the  Columbia  River  and  in  adjacent  territory. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  229 

3.  The  architecture  of  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  proves 
that  they  must  have  originally  come  from  the  north. 

It  was  long  a  favorite  opinion  with  archaeologists  that 
the  civilization  of  Central  America  was  indigenous  to 
that  section,  and  it  was  assumed  that  that  region  had  been 
a  sort  of  radiating  center  from  which  the  various  nations 
went  out  to  people  the  New  World.1  But  this  assumption 
will  have  to  be  relinquished,  for  it  is  now  known  that 
Central  America  not  only  did  not  germinate  the  culture 
of  the  other  regions  of  America,  where  men  had  reached 
a  considerable  degree  of  advancement,  but  that  she  de 
rived  her  own  civilization  from  without.  This  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  the  successive  steps,  the  rude  beginnings 
and  the  intermediate  stages  of  a  developing  architectural 
art,  found  in  Egypt  and  other  countries  where  civiliza 
tions  have  been  begun  and  carried  to  a  high  degree,  are 
wholly  wanting  in  Chiapas  and  Yucatan.  The  Mayas, 
when  they  entered  the  central  region,  were  artisans  and 
mechanics  with  advanced  ideas  of  architecture.  "How 
are  we  to  account  for  this  absence  of  earlier  forms," 
asks  Thomas,  "except  upon  the  theory  that  when  the 
tribes  entered  their  historic  seats  they  had  already  be 
come  proficient  in  the  builder's  art?" — American  Archae 
ology,  p.  341. 

When  the  works  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  are 
carefully  studied,  it  is  observed  that  there  is  a  general 
architectural  improvement  from  the  Gila  on  the  north 
to  the  Usumacinta  on  the  south,  as  though  there  had 
been  a  constant  but  slow  trend  of  population  southward. 
A  line  of  continually  developing  architectural  forms  may 
be  traced  from  the  region  of  the  Gila,  in  Arizona, 
through  Casas  Grandes,  in  the  State  of  Chihuahua,  ancl 

1  "Prehistoric  Races,"  pp.  339,  340, 


230  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Zape,  in  Zacatecas,  to  Mexico,  and  from  thence  to  Chi 
apas  and  Yucatan.  This  route,  evidently,  was  the  ancient 
thoroughfare  over  which  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  trav 
eled  on  their  way  to  Anahuac  and  Central  America.  The 
initial  efforts  at  pyramid  and  terrace  building,  carried  to 
so  high  a  grade  in  Central  America,  were  made  on  the 
Gila,  as  is  evidenced  in  the  mounds  and  artificial  plat 
forms  there  to  be  found.  At  Casas  Grandes,  while  in 
general  type  the  architecture  is  unquestionably  like  that 
of  Arizona,  transitional  forms  appear,  and,  by  the  time 
Quemada  is  reached,  the  impress  of  a  northern  influence 
becomes  fainter  with  more  of  a  tendency  toward  Cen 
tral  American  forms.  These  facts  prove  that  the  monu 
ments  from  the  Gila  to  Honduras  were  erected  by  the 
same  people,  or  related  peoples,  who  moved  by  slow 
stages,  and  frequent  stops,  southward,  increasing  in 
power  and  civilization  on  the  way.  This  is  the  easiest 
and  best  explanation  of  the  transitional  architectural 
forms  of  northern  and  southern  Mexico.1 

To  fortify  this  argument,  I  here  introduce  the  testi 
mony  of  three  as  competent  archaeologists  as  have  ever 
written  on  the  subject  of  antiquities,  at  least  two  of 
whom  have  made  careful  personal  investigations  on  the 
field. 

Thomas  says :  "In  fact,  the  evidence  of  gradual  ad 
vance  toward  a  higher  grade  in  the  architectural  art  is 
seen  beyond  question  as  we  advance  southward  from  Ari 
zona  to  Quemada,  be  our  opinion  in  regard  to  the  authors 
of  these  works  what  it  may.  We  must  confess  that,  so 
far  as  we  are  able  to  judge  from  all  that  has  been  written 
in  regard  to  the  ruins  of  the  southwest,  there  seems  to  be 
no  other  reason  for  denying  this  advance  in  type  than  a 

1  "American   Archaeology,"   Chapter   XXIII. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  231 

fixed  purpose  to  maintain  a  theory." — American  Archae 
ology,  p.  349- 

In  support  of  his  belief,  he  gives  us  a  quotation  from 
the  well-known  archaeologist,  Bandelier,  part  of  which  is 
as  follows :  "It  seems,  therefore,  that  between  the  thirty- 
fourth  and  the  twenty-ninth  parallels  of  latitude  the 
aboriginal  architecture  of  the  southwest  had  begun  to 
change  in  a  manner  that  brought  some  of  its  elements 
that  were  of  northern  origin  into  disuse,  and  substituted 
others  derived  from  southern  influences ;  in  other  words, 
that  there  was  a  gradual  transformation  going  on  in 
ancient  aboriginal  architecture  in  the  direction  from 
north  to  south." — Ibid,  p.  350. 

He  also  gives  us  the  following  from  Charnay:  "Las 
Casas  Grandes,  the  settlements  in  the  Sierra  Madre,  the 
ruins  of  Zape,  of  Quemada,  recalling  the  monuments  at 
Mitla,  others  in  Queretaro,  together  with  certain  fea 
tures  in  the  building  of  temples  and  altars  which  remind 
one  of  the  Mexican  manuscripts,  from  which  the  Toltec, 
Aztec  and  Yucatec  temple  was  built,  make  it  clear  that 
the  civilized  races  came  from  the  northwest." — Ibid,  p> 

349- 

The  name  of  the  ancient  country  from  which  the 
Maya  and  Nahua  tribes  are  said  to  have  come  is  given 
differently  in  the  traditions.  The  Toltecs  called  it  Hue 
Hue  Tlapallan,  "Old  Old  Red  Land;"  the  Chichimecs, 
Amequemecan,  and  the  Aztecs,  Aztlan,  "White  Land," 
or  Chicomoztoc,  "Seven  Caves,"  while  the  Mayas  spoke 
of  it  as  Tulan  Zuiva,  or  "Seven  Ravines."  It  was 
vaguely  located  in  the  north  somewhere  and  was  to  the 
tribes  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  what  Palestine  is 
to  the  Jew  and  Grenada  to  the  Moor.  Archaeologists 
have  been  puzzled  to  know  just  where  in  the  north  to 
locate  it  and  varied  have  been  their  conjectures.  Bald- 


232  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

win,  Foster  and  Short  have  looked  for  it  in  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley  and  have  identified  the  Mexican  and  Central 
American  tribes  with  those  who  built  the  mounds,  but 
recent  discoveries,  by  which  the  tribes  resident  in  the 
valleys  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery  are  identified  with 
the  Mound  Builders,  have  effectually  refuted  this  theory. 
Briart  claims  a  location  for  it  near  Lake  Tulare  in  Cali 
fornia,  Becker  on  the  Rio  Colorado,  and  Humboldt  on 
the  Gila. 

Of  all  these  theories,  and  many  others  that  might  be 
mentioned,  the  last  two  are  the  most  probable.  The  con 
stant  mention  of  caves  and  ravines  in  the  old  accounts 
may  refer  to  the  manner  of  life  followed  by  the  tribes, 
when  they  resided  in  the  north,  of  living  in  cliffs  and 
caves,  while  the  colors  red  and  white,  by  which  the 
ancient  country  was  designated  by  the  Toltecs  and  Az 
tecs,  may  refer  to  the  color  of  the  cliffs  or  mountains. 
On  this  point  Professor  Thomas  writes :  "Why  there  has 
been  such  persistent  refusal  on  the  part  of  scholars  to 
accept,  as  at  least  possible,  the  theory  that  the  tradition 
of  the  'Seven  Caves'  or  'Seven  Ravines'  (Chicomoztoc 
and  Tulan  Zuiva)  refers  to  the  cliff  dwellings  or  cave 
dwellings  of  northwestern  Mexico  and  Arizona,  is  dif 
ficult  to  account  for.  There  is  nothing  in  this  supposi 
tion  contrary  to  the  traditions,  nor  to  the  generally 
accepted  theory  of  the  course  of  migrations.  The  num 
ber  seven  does  not  necessarily  play  any  particular  role  in 
the  solution  of  this  problem.  Numbers  were  determined 
from  some  incident  or  circumstance  which  may  or  may 
not  be  known.  Seven  may  have  been  selected  because  of 
some  superstition,  or  because  it  was  understood  that 
seven  was  the  number  of  tribes  belonging  to  a  certain 
group  or  stock,  or  it  may  have  arisen  in  many  other 
ways.  It  is,  therefore,  immaterial  in  this  relation.  The 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  233 

reference,  therefore,  in  the  Nahuatl  and  Maya  traditions 
to  seven  caves,  although  largely  mixed  with  myth,  may 
be  interpreted  as  possibly  referring  to  the  cliff  or  cave 
dwellings,  or  to  this  mode  of  living  while  in  the  north. 
This  would  be  appropriate  as  explaining  the  frequent 
reference  in  these  traditions  to  darkness,  gloom  and  a 
sunless  condition.  It  is  well  known  that  caves  were 
often  resorted  to  in  the  southern  regions  as  places  for 
holding  religious  ceremonies  and  other  purposes." — 
American  Archaeology,  p.  355. 

It  is  also  a  fact  of  history  that  many  of  the  towns  on 
the  southern  Gila  were  deserted  in  1540  when  Coronado 
visited  them;  these  and  others,  which  have  not  yet  been 
discovered,  may  have  been  among  the  works  of  the  old 
Mayan  and  Nahuan  tribes.  Besides,  it  is  now  known 
that  tribes  of  the  Uto-Aztecan  family,  notably  the  Mokis 
of  the  Shoshonian  and  the  Pimas  of  the  Sonoran  branch, 
have  built  cliff  houses  within  historic  times.  Putting 
these  facts  all  together,  we  have  pretty  strong  proof  that 
the  Mayas  and  the  Nahuas  came  from  the  north  not 
only,  but  also  that  the  ancient  country  in  which  they 
began  to  lead  a  life  of  civilization  was  somewhere  in  the 
northwestern  part  of  Mexico,  or  in  the  southwestern 
part  of  the  United  States. 

The  most  prominent  opponent  of  the  northern  origin 
of  the  Nahuatl  tribes  is  Bancroft.  For  several  reasons 
he  opposed  the  theory  and  tried  to  find  Hue  Hue  Tlapal- 
lan  in  the  Usumacinta  region  and  to  connect  the  Toltecs 
with  Xibalba.  He  did  not,  however,  bring  them  from 
south  of  the  Isthmus,  and  so  his  theory  can  not  be  made 
to  do  service  in  the  interest  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 
He  argued  that  no  ruins  had  been  discovered  in  the 
north  which  could  have  been  the  initial  steps  in  Maya 
and  Nahua  architecture,  and  that  no  Aztec  or  Maya  dia- 


234  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

lects  had  been  found  in  that  direction;  both  of  which 
conclusions,  since  his  day,  have  positively  been  proved 
untrue,  as  we  have  seen.1  Many  more  of  his  opinions 
in  nowise  conflict  with  the  theory  of  a  northern  deriva 
tion. 

The  consensus  of  opinion  among  scientific  men  upon 
the  origin  of  the  Maya  and  Nahua  tribes  is,  however, 
that  they  came  from  the  north  to  those  countries  which 
they  inhabited  in  historic  times. 

"The  Toltecs  directed  their  course  toward  the  south." 
— Brian's  Aztecs,  p.  38. 

"It  results  from  the  evidences  in  our  possession  that 
there  has  existed  a  continuous  and  general  tendency  of 
migration  from  north  to  south  in  the  two  Americas." — 
Preadamites,  p.  395. 

"Here,  again,  enters  speculation  upon  the  location  of 
that  country  of  the  Toltecs.  No  one  knows  certainly 
where  it  was,  but  everything  points  to  its  having  been 
in  the  north." — Ober's  History  of  Mexico,  p.  26. 

"When  the  Toltecs,  who  led  the  van  of  the  great 
Aztec  migration  from  the  north,  settled  in  Mexico,  they 
are  said  to  have  found  it  inhabited  by  the  Olmecas  or 

1  Since  writing  this  I  have  come  across  a  statement  from  Bancroft  in 
which  he  concedes  that  there  is  no  good  reason  why  the  foundations  of 
the  Nahua  and  Maya  civilizations  may  not  have  been  laid  in  the  North 
west.  In  opposing  the  theory  of  Buckle,  that  the  development  of  civiliza 
tion  is  dependent  upon  the  heat  and  moisture  of  the  tropics,  he  says 
(Vol.  II.,  p.  53)  :  "Indeed,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  foundations  of  the 
Aztec  and  Maya-Quiche  civilizations  may  not  have  been  laid,  north  of  the 
thirty-fifth  parallel,  although  no  architectural  remains  have  been  discovered 
there,  nor  any  other  proof  of  such  an  origin;  but  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Gila,  the  Colorado,  and  the  Rio  Grande,  in  Chihuahua,  and  on  the  dry, 
hot  plains  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  far  beyond  the  limits  of  Mr. 
Buckle's  territory  where  'there  never  has  been  found,  and  we  may  con 
fidently  assert,  never  will  be  found,'  any  evidence  of  progress,  are  to-day 
walled  towns  inhabited  by  an  industrial  and  agricultural  people,  whose 
existence  we  can  trace  back  for  more  than  three  centuries,  besides  ruins 
of  massive  buildings  of  whose  history  nothing  is  known." 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  235 

Olmees,  a  nation  to  which  the  learned  Siguenza  ascribed 
the  construction  of  the  pyramids  of  Teotihuacan." — 
American  Antiquities,  p.  200. 

'The  Toltecs  arrived  in  Anahuac,  or  the  country 
now  called  Mexico,  migrating  from  the  north." — Types 
of  Mankind,  p.  286. 

"Before  the  Christian  era  the  Nahoa  immigration 
from  the  north  made  its  appearance." — The  Mound 
Builders,  p.  147. 

"No  reasonable  doubt  exists  but  that  the  Athapascas, 
Algonkins,  Iroquois,  Chahta-Muskokis  and  Nahuas  all 
migrated  from  the  north  or  west  to  the  regions  they 
occupied." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  47. 

"The  prevailing  opinion  among  scholars  of  the  pres 
ent  day,  so  far  as  published,  appears  to  be  that  the 
Nahuatl  group  originated  in,  or  at  least  came  from  some 
place  north  of,  the  known  localities  of  the  tribes  com 
posing  the  family." — American  Archaeology,  p.  316. 

We  have  three  lines  of  evidence,  then,  which  refute 
the  Book  of  Mormon  claim  that  the  ancient  inhabitants 
of  Central  America  and  Mexico  came  from  over  the  sea 
and  from  South  America.  First,  the  traditions ;  second, 
the  languages,  and,  third,  the  architectural  features. 
These  evidences  strongly  declare  that  the  ancient  Mayas 
and  Nahuas  came  from  the  north. 

THE  ANCIENT  MAYAS  AND  NAHUAS  WERE  NEAR  NEIGH 
BORS,  CAME  CONSTANTLY  IN  CONTACT,  AND  WERE  LONG 
IN  INTIMATE  ASSOCIATION  WITH  EACH  OTHER. 

The  Jaredites  are  declared  to  have  landed  upon 
American  soil  in  the  year  2224  B.  C,  and  to  have  been 
here  until  the  year  600  B.  C.,  when  they  were  extermi 
nated  at  Hill  Ramah  in  western  New  York.  The  Ne- 
phites,  we  are  told,  immediately  followed  them  and  con- 


236  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

tinued  until  385  A.  D.,  when  they  suffered  defeat  at  the 
hands  of  the  Lamanites.  The  Jaredites  and  Nephites 
are  said  to  have  been  distinct  peoples  and  never  to  have 
come  in  contact,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Jaredite 
Coriantumr,  who  survived  the  destruction  of  his  people 
and  who  dwelt  with  the  Zarahemlaites  "nine  moons." 

But  the  American  traditions  show  that  the  two 
ancient  civilized  peoples  of  Central  America  and  Mexico 
were  here  at  the  same  time,  were  near  neighbors,  were 
often  at  war  with  each  other,  and  exerted  a  mutual 
influence  in  the  development  of  their  respective  civiliza 
tions. 

Says  Short :  "The  pyramidal  structure  we  have  found 
employed  by  both  Mayas  and  Nahuas,  with  certain  mod 
ifications  and  with  such  resemblances  as  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  both  peoples  had  been  originally,  or  at  an 
early  day,  near  neighbors,  and  that  the  younger  people, 
at  least  the  more  recent  in  their  occupancy  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America,  the  Nahuas,  may  have  copied  the 
pyramid  in  its  perfected  form  from  the  Mayas." — North 
Americans  on  Antiquity,  p.  224. 

Says  Bancroft:  "First,  as  already  stated,  the  Maya 
and  Nahua  nations  have  been  within  traditionally  his 
toric  times  practically  distinct,  although  coming  con 
stantly  in  contact." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  166. 

And  Thomas  declares :  "It  is  also  generally  conceded, 
or  at  least  intimated,  and  apparently  in  accordance  with 
the  most  reliable  data,  that  the  Mayas  and  Zapotecs,  if 
not  derived  in  the  far  distant  past  from  the  same  original 
stem  as  the  Nahuatl  tribes,  had  long  been  in  intimate 
association  with  the  latter." — American  Archaeology,  p. 

354- 

This  is  a  most  forceful  argument  against  the  Mor 
mon  theory  that  the  "two  distinct  people"  of  Central 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  237 

America  and  Mexico  were  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites, 
for,  if  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  were  "near  neighbors," 
came  ''constantly  in  contact"  and  were  in  "intimate  asso 
ciation"  with  each  other,  they  could  not  have  been  iden 
tical  with  the  Book  of  Mormon  nations,  who  are  said  to 
have  been  here  consecutively. 

Tradition  further  tells  us  that  the  Nahuas  were  the 
force  that  overthrew  the  old,  effete  empire  of  Xibalba. 
Bancroft  sums  up  the  historical  facts,  as  given  in  the 
Quiche  manuscript,  the  Popol  Vuh,  in  the  following: 
"The  Quiche  traditions,  then,  point  clearly  to,  first,  the 
existence  in  ancient  times  of  a  great  empire  somewhere 
in  Central  America,  called  Xibalba  by  its  enemies;  sec 
ond,  the  growth  of  a  rival  neighboring  power ;  third,  a 
long  struggle  extending  through  several  generations  at 
least,  and  resulting  in  the  downfall  of  the  Xibalban 
kings ;  fourth,  a  subsequent  scattering — the  cause  of 
which  is  not  stated,  but  was  evidently  war,  civil  or  for 
eign — of  the  formerly  victorious  nations  from  Tulan, 
their  chief  city  or  province;  fifth,  the  identification  of  a 
portion  of  the  migrating  chiefs  with  the  founders  of  the 
Quiche-Cakchiquel  nations  in  possession  of  Guatemala 
at  the  Conquest." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  185. 

The  facts,  as  gleaned  from  the  fields  of  traditional 
history  and  archaeology,  are  as  follows :  Some  hundreds  of 
years  ago,  probably  not  earlier  than  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  there  appeared  in  Central  America  from 
the  north  a  civilized  people  known  to  us  as  the  Mayas, 
or  Colhuas.  These  subjugated  the  barbarous  tribes, 
taught  them  the  arts  of  civilized  life  and  established  an 
empire,  which,  at  the  height  of  its  glory,  included  under 
its  sway  the  valley  of  the  Usumacinta  and  adjacent  terri 
tory.  When  this  people  had  become  settled  in  their  new 
home  there  appeared  to  the  north  of  them  a  new  people, 


238  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

speaking  a  new  language,  who  settled  in  central  and 
southern  Mexico.  The  indications  are  that  the  two 
peoples  lived  peaceably  side  by  side  for  some  time,  until 
the  Nahuas  had  developed  sufficient  strength  to  over 
throw  the  Votanic  sovereigns.  This  was  accomplished, 
however,  only  after  a  long  and  bloody  struggle.  Ban 
croft  speaks  of  this  conflict  as  "a  long  struggle  extend 
ing  through  several  generations  at  least,  and  resulting  in 
the  downfall  of  the  Xibalban  kings." — Native  Races, 
Vol.  V.,  p.  186.  And  Short  says:  "While  we  do  not 
attach  much  certainty  to  the  Abbe's" — DeBourbourg's — 
"date,  still  we  think  that  the  fall  of  Xibalba  was  due  to 
Nahua  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  the  ancestors  of 
the  Quiches." — North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  227. 

The  overthrow  of  this  empire  did  not  consist  in  the 
extermination  of  a  people,  but  in  the  destruction  of  a 
government  and  the  scattering  of  its  subjects  or  their 
absorption  among  the  victorious  Nahuas.  ,  "The  old 
civilization  was  merged  in  the  new,  and  practically  lost 
its  identity ;  so  much  so  that  all  the  many  nationalities 
that  in  later  times  traced  their  origin  to  this  central 
region  were  proud,  whatever  their  language,  to  claim 
relationship  with  the  successful  Nahuas,  whose  institu 
tions  they  had  adopted  and  whose  power  they  had 
shared." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  234. 

These  facts  are  against  the  Book  of  Mormon.  The 
Jaredites  and  Nephites  never  came  in  contact ;  the  latter 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  downfall  of  the  former;  and 
the  first  people,  after  their  overthrow,  were  not  merged 
with  the  second.  We  are  justified,  therefore,  in  conclu 
ding  that  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas  were  not  the  Jaredites 
and  Nephites. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  239 

THE  BUILDERS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CITIES  OF  CENTRAL 
AMERICA  ARE   NOT  AN    EXTERMINATED   RACE. 

Apostle  Kelley  asserts :  "Further,  it  is  known  that  the 
oldest  nation  that  inhabited  America  has  long  since  been 
exterminated.  So  says  the  'Book  of  Mormon.'  So  says 
tradition.  So  says  modern  research." — Presidency  and 
Priesthood,  p.  264. 

But  we  are  compelled  to  dissent  from  this  opinion  of 
Apostle  Kelley.  That  the  Book  of  Mormon  says  that 
the  oldest  nation  which  inhabited  America  has  long  since 
been  exterminated  we  allow,  but  when  it  comes  to  tradi 
tion  and  modern  research  we  are  not  prepared  to  con 
cede  that  they  agree  with  the  Book  of  Mormon.  It  can 
be  shown  that  tribes  and  nations  have  been  broken  up 
by  war,  famine  and  pestilence ;  that  they  have  been  scat 
tered  in  different  directions  and  merged  with  other  tribes 
and  nations,  and  that  they  have  lost  their  former  glory ; 
but  it  can  not  be  proved  that  an  ancient  and  widespread 
race,  like  the  Jaredite,  ever  lost  its  existence  in  the  way 
in  which  the  Book  of  Mormon  declares  this  people  lost 
theirs. 

Everywhere  throughout  the  New  World  the  evidences 
proclaim  loudly  and  emphatically  against  the  theory  of 
'Vanished,"  "lost"  and  "extinct"  races,  using  these  terms 
in  the  sense  in  which  they  are  applied  to  the  Book  of 
Mormon  peoples.  The  Mound  Builders,  about  whom  so 
much  mystery  hung  for  a  number  of  years,  are  now 
positively  proved  to  have  been  only  tribes  of  American 
Indians,  and  so  critically  have  their  remains  been  studied 
that  in  many  instances  the  very  tribes  who  built  the 
works  of  certain  localities  are  known.  The  same  is  also 
true  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers.  While,  according  to  Brinton, 
the  people  who  erected  Copan  and  Quirigua,  said  by  the 


240  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Josephite  Committee  on  American  Archaeology  to  be 
Jaredite  cities,  are  represented  to-day  by  no  less  than 
nineteen  distinct  tribes,  as  follows :  Aguatecas,  Cakchi- 
quels,  Chaneabals,  Chinantecos,  Choles,  Chortis,  Huas- 
tecas,  Ixils,  Lacandons,  Mams,  Mayas,  Mopans,  Quek- 
chis,  Quiches,  Pokomams,  Pokonchis,  Tzendals,  Tzutu- 
hils  and  Uspantecas.1 

That  Mormon  writers  identify  the  Jaredite  cities  with 
those  of  the  Mayas  in  Yucatan,  Honduras,  etc.,  is  made 
evident  by  a  statement  in  "Book  of  Mormon  Lectures," 
p.  64.  Mr.  Stebbins  says  in  this  place :  "The  chief  Jared 
ite  cities  were  not  in  Mexico,  but  south  in  Yucatan,  Hon 
duras,  etc."  If  this  is  true,  Uxmal,  Chichen  Itza,  Peten, 
Palenque,  Quirigua,  Copan  and  Utatlan  are  all  the  work 
of  an  exterminated  race  who  met  their  final  defeat  in  a 
battle  in  western  New  York  six  centuries  before  Christ. 
This,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  is  putting  the  overthrow 
of  their  builders  before  the  erection  of  the  cities  them 
selves,  for  but  very  few,  if  any,  of  our  best-informed 
writers  of  to-day  would  feel  justified  in  giving  any  of 
them  an  antiquity  of  more  than  nineteen  hundred 
years. 

The  theory  that  the  cities  mentioned  were  erected  by 
an  exterminated  race  is  not  advanced,  so  far  as  I  can 
learn,  by  any  author  of  any  prominence  whatever  who 
has  written  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  although 
at  the  time  the  Book  of  Mormon  came  out  some  of  the 
more  ignorant  and  visionary  believed  it.  It  belongs  to 
that  class  of  theories  broached  and  defended  by  such 
fanatics  as  George  Jones,  Lord  Kingsborough  and  Jo- 
siah  Priest. 

Bancroft  says  on  the  relationship  of  the  ancient  Cen- 

1  "The  American  Race,"  p.   158.  '     . 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  241 

tral  Americans  to  those  of  the  present  day:  "I  deem  the 
ground  sufficient,  therefore,  for  accepting  this  Central 
American  civilization  of  the  past  as  a  fact,  referring  it 
not  to  an  extinct  ancient  race,  but  to  the  direct  ancestors 
of  the  peoples  still  occupying  the  country  with  the 
Spaniards,  and  applying  to  it  the  name  Maya  as  that  of 
the  language  which  has  claims  as  strong  as  any  to  be 
considered  the  mother  tongue  of  the  linguistic  family 
mentioned." — Native  Races,  Vol.  II. ,  p.  117. 

Squier  also  attributes  the  cities  of  Central  America 
to  the  ancestors  of  the  present  native  population.  "All 
of  them  were  the  work  of  the  same  people,  or  of  nations 
of  the  same  race,  dating  from  a  high  antiquity,  and  in 
blood  and  language  precisely  the  same  race,  .  .  .  that  was 
found  in  occupation  of  the  country  by  the  Spaniards,  and 
who  still  constitute  the  great  bulk  of  the  population." — 
Palacio,  Carta,  pp.  9,  10. 

Tylor,  the  eminent  anthropologist,  writes:  "The 
sculptures  and  temples  of  Central  America  are  the  work 
of  the  ancestors  of  the  present  Indians." — Tyler's  Re 
searches,  p.  189. 

Brinton  says  on  the  identity  of  the  builders  of  Pa- 
lenque  and  Copan  with  the  present-existing  tribes:  "At 
the  time  of  the  conquest  the  stately  structures  of  Copan, 
Palenque,  T'Ho  and  many  other  cities  were  deserted  and 
covered  with  an  apparently  primitive  forest ;  but  others 
not  inferior  to  them,  Uxmal,  Chichen  Itza,  Peten,  etc., 
were  the  centers  of  dense  population,  proving  that  the 
builders  of  both  were  identical." — The  American  Race, 

P-   155- 

And  Short  says  of  the  builders  of  Palenque:  "Under 
the  shadow  of  the  magnificent  and  mysterious  ruins  of 
Palenque  a  people  grew  to  power  who  spread  into  Guate 
mala  and  Honduras,  northward  toward  Anahuac  and 


242  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

southward  into  Yucatan,  and  for  a  period  of  probably 
twenty-five  centuries" — from  955  B.  C.  to  the  Spanish 
Conquest — "exercised  a  sway  which  at  one  time  excited 
the  envy  and  fear  of  its  neighbors." — North  Americans 
of  Antiquity,  p.  203. 

The  conclusion  of  these  authors  is  founded  upon 
the  most  conclusive  evidence.  Palenque,  Copan  and 
T'Ho  were  uninhabited  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  not 
because  their  builders  had  been  exterminated  in  a  fatal 
conflict  in  western  New  York,  but  because  they  had  been 
broken  up  into  fragmentary  nations  and  had  been  scat 
tered  to  different  parts  of  the  central  region. 

Yucatan  is  identified  by  the  Committee  with  the 
Jaredite  land  of  Nehor.  And,  as  it  is  not  identified  with 
any  Nephite  country,  we  infer  that  with  them  its  ruined 
cities  were  all  the  work  of  that  extinct  race.  But  this  is 
not  true.  The  cities  of  Yucatan  were  among  the  later 
works  of  the  Maya  people,  and  were  not  built  by  an 
extinct  race.  Uxmal,  according  to  Thomas,  was  built  by 
the  Tutul  Xiu,  a  royal  family,  probably  not  much  earlier 
than  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  was  in 
habited  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest.  And  Chichen  Itza 
was  probably  founded  in  the  sixth  century  A.  D.,  and 
was  also  inhabited  when  the  Spaniards  first  visited  it. 
While,  as  for  Mayapan,  one  account  says  that  it  was  one 
of  the  tributary  capitals  of  Xibalba,  while  another  de 
clares  that  it  was  built  by  Kukulkan  after  leaving 
Chichen  Itza.  But,  be  the  dates  of  the  founding  of  these 
cities  what  they  may,  one  thing  is  certain:  they  were 
founded  by  the  ancestors  of  the  present  native  popula 
tion  and  not  by  an  extinct  race.  "It  may  then  be  ac 
cepted,"  writes  Bancroft,  "as  a  fact  susceptible  of  no 
doubt  that  the  Yucatan  structures  were  built  by  the 
Mayas,  the  direct  ancestors  of  the  people  found  in  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  243 

peninsula  at  the  Conquest  and  of  the  present  native  popu 
lation." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  283. 

I  challenge  the  Committee  on  American  Archaeology 
to  prove  by  trustworthy  and  well-authenticated  evidence 
that  the  first  civilized  people  of  Central  America,  those 
who  built  Copan  and  Quirigua,  were  exterminated  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  Jaredites  are  said  to  have  been 
exterminated. 

THE    EMPIRES    OF    THE    MAYAS    AND    NAHUAS    WERE    CON 
FINED    TO    CENTRAL    AMERICA    AND    MEXICO. 

We  are  informed  that  the  empire  of  the  Jaredites 
extended  from  Honduras  on  the  south  to  the  Great  Lakes 
on  the  north,  and  east  and  west  from  ocean  to  ocean. 
The  Nephites  included  within  their  domain  not  only  all 
of  this  territory,  but  also  in  addition  that  part  of  South 
America  now  known  as  the  United  States  of  Colombia, 
and,  in  earlier  times,  also  Peru.  Throughout  their  respec 
tive  empires  these  peoples,  during  their  respective  epochs, 
were  of  a  uniform  degree  of  civilization,  practiced  the 
same  arts,  possessed  the  same  customs,  worshiped  the 
same  God,  were  under  the  same  laws,  spoke  the  same 
language,  and  erected  the  same  kinds  of  buildings. 

Ether  says  of  the  Jaredites :  "And  the  whole  face  of 
the  land  northward  was  covered  with  inhabitants ;  and 
they  were  exceeding  industrious,  and  they  did  buy  and 
sell,  and  traffic  one  with  another,  that  they  might  get 
gain.  And  they  did  work  in  all  manner  of  ore,  and  they 
did  make  gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and  brass,  and  all 
manner  of  metals;  and  they  did  dig  it  out  of  the  earth; 
wherefore  they  did  cast  up  mighty  heaps  of  earth  to  get 
ore  of  gold,  and  of  silver,  and  of  iron,  and  of  copper. 
And  they  did  work  all  manner  of  fine  work.  And  they 
did  have  silks,  and  fine  twined  linen ;  and  they  did  work 


244  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

all  manner  of  cloth,  that  they  might  clothe  themselves 
from  their  nakedness.  And  they  did  make  all  manner  of 
tools  to  till  the  earth,  both  to  plow  and  to  sow,  to  reap 
and  to  hoe,  and  also  to  thrash.  And  they  did  make  all 
manner  of  tools  with  which  they  did  work  their  beasts. 
And  they  did  make  all  manner  of  weapons  of  war.  And 
they  did  work  all  manner  of  work  of  exceeding  curious 
wprkmanship.  And  never  could  be  a  people  more  blest 
than  were  they,  and  more  prospered  by  the  hand  of  the 
Lord.''— Ether  4 :  7. 

The  "land  northward,"  on  the  Committee's  maps,  is 
the  name  of  that  country  lying  south  of  the  Great  Lakes 
and  north  of  Mexico,  the  "land  of  Heth."  Evidently,  in 
its  broader  sense,  it  included  not  only  this  territory,  but 
also  Mexico  and  a  part  at  least  of  Central  America. 
Upon  the  "whole  face"  of  this  land  the  inhabitants  were 
engaged  in  the  same  occupations  and  practiced  the  same 
arts,  implying  a  uniform  degree  of  culture  from  Central 
America  northward  to  what  is  now  the  boundary-line 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States. 

The  following  is  a  description  given  of  the  Nephites 
at  the  period  of  their  widest  extent:  "Now,  the  land 
south" — South  America — "was  called  Lehi,  and  the  land 
north" — North  America — "was  called  Mulek,  which  was 
after  the  sons  of  Zedekiah ;  for  the  Lord  did  bring  Mulek 
into  the  land  north,  and  Lehi  into  the  land  south.  And 
behold,  there  was  all  manner  of  gold  in  both  these  lands, 
and  of  silver,  and  of  precious  ore  of  every  kind;  and 
there  were  also  curious  workmen,  who  did  work  all  kinds 
of  ore,  and  did  refine  it;  and  thus  they  did  become  rich. 
They  did  raise  grain  in  abundance,  both  in  the  north  and 
in  the  south.  And  they  did  flourish  exceedingly,  both  in 
the  north  and  in  the  south.  And  they  did  multiply  and 
wax  exceeding  strong  in  the  land.  And  they  did  raise 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  245 

many  flocks  and  herds,  yea,  many  fallings.  Behold,  their 
women  did  toil  and  spin,  and  did  make  all  manner  of 
cloth,  of  fine  twined  linen,  and  cloth  of  every  -kind,  to 
clothe  their  nakedness." — Helaman  2 :  27. 

But,  when  we  carefully  examine  the  evidences,  tradi 
tional,  linguistic  and  archaeological,  we  find  no  proof  of 
the  former  existence  of  these  lost  empires.  The  Mayan 
Empire,  with  which  the  Jaredite  must  be  identified  if 
with  any,  had  its  center  in  the  Usumacinta  Valley,  and  in 
its  widest  extent  only  comprised  the  territory  of  the 
present  states  of  Chiapas,  Tabasco,  Yucatan,  Guatemala 
and  a  part  of  Honduras.  At  the  time  of  the  Conquest 
its  descendants  were  confined  to  this  territory,  with  the 
exception  of  an  outlying  colony,  the  Huastecs,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Rio  Panuco,  which  undoubtedly  was  left 
behind  in  the  original  migration  from  the  north.  The 
capitals  of  this  empire,  according  to  tradition,  were 
Palenque  in  Chiapas,  Copan  in  Honduras  arid  Mayapan 
in  Yucatan. 

The  empire  of  the  Toltecs  occupied  central  and 
southern  Mexico.  At  the  period  of  its  greatest  power 
it  comprised  only  the  confederated  states  of  Culhuacan, 
Otompan  and  Tollan. 

This  is  all  that  can  be  said  for  the  extent  of  the  two 
most  advanced  and  prosperous  empires  of  antiquity  in 
that  part  of  the  New  World.  To  move  the  boundary- 
line  of  the  first  northward  as  far  as  the  Great  Lakes, 
and  the  boundary-lines  of  the  second  northward  to  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  southward  at  least  to  Ecuador,  is  to  go 
directly  contrary  to  all  traditional,  linguistic  and  archae 
ological  indications. 

There  are  no  proofs  by  which  to  establish  a  national 
connection  between  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  Valley  and  those  of  Central  America.  The 


246  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

peoples  of  the  two  sections  were  wholly  different  in 
their  culture  stata.  Their  structures  were  dissimilar, 
except  that  they  were  built  upon  pyramidal  bases.  The 
Mound  Builders  used  no  cut  stone  or  mortar;  they  had 
no  hieroglyphical  writing;  their  sculpture  work  was  con 
fined  to  the  carving  of  shells,  bones  and  small  pieces  of 
stone ;  their  structures  were  all  of  wood  or  other  perish 
able  materials ;  they  worked  the  metals  in  a  cold  state 
and  knew  nothing  of  the  arts  of  smelting  and  alloying; 
and  they  depended,  in  a  great  measure,  upon  the  chase 
for  food.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Mexicans  and  Central 
Americans  built  large  and  imposing  palaces  and  temples 
of  cut  stone,  laid  in  well-tempered  mortar;  they  reached 
a  high  degree  of  proficiency  in  hieroglyphical  writing; 
they  were  good  sculptors  and  covered  their  buildings 
with  ornamental  and  graphic  designs ;  they  had  well- 
organized  governments ;  and  they  were  experts  in  the 
arts  of  alloying  and  smelting  metals. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  these  well-marked  differences, 
Mr.  Stebbins  asserts :  "Science  fully  establishes  that  a 
great  nation  formerly  lived  in  the  United  States,  and  all 
unite  in  saying  that  the  evidences  are  that  this  wonderful 
civilization  had  its  base  and  origin  in  Central  America 
and  Mexico,  and  that  from  those  countries  it  spread  over 
the  United  States." — Lectures,  p.  57. 

But  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  a  civilized  people 
from  Central  America,  practicing  advanced  arts  and 
under  the  government  of  the  mother  country,  moving 
up  into  the  Mississippi  Valley,  should  suddenly  relapse 
into  a  state  of  savagery  and  give  up  the  arts  of  cutting, 
polishing  and  carving  stone  and  the  use  of  mortar;  the 
smelting  and  alloying  of  metals,  and  the  art  of  hiero 
glyphical  writing.  And  yet  this  is  just  what  occurred,  if 
the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  came 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  247 

from  Mexico  and  Central  America.  Mr.  Stebbins'  claim 
that  a  "wonderful  civilization"  once  existed  in  the  United 
States  is  wholly  incorrect.  The  Mound  Builders  were 
not  one  whit  ahead  of  the  Chata  Muskokis,  Cherokees 
and  Iroquois  when  these  tribes  were  first  seen  by  the 
whites.  On  this  point  Professor  Thomas  speaks  as 
follows :  "Nothing  trustworthy  has  been  discovered  to 
justify  the  theory  that  the  mound  builders  belonged  to 
a  highly  civilized  race,  or  that  they  were  a  people  who 
had  attained  a  higher  culture  status  than  the  Indians." — 
Mound  Exploration,  p.  n. 

Again,  Mr.  Stebbins'  assertion  that  "all  unite  in  say 
ing  that  this  wonderful  civilization  had  its  base  and 
origin  in  Central  America  and  Mexico"  is  also  without 
foundation,  for  the  great  body  of  archaeologists  to-day 
deny  that  the  arts  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  derived 
from  the  South.  "There  is,  it  is  now  reasonably  certain," 
says  Nadaillac,  "no  good  ground  for  connecting  the 
builders  of  the  earthworks  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  with 
the  Central  American  people  who  erected  the  remarkable 
monuments  which  will  hereafter  be  referred  to.  But, 
until  very  recently,  it  has  been  a  favorite  and  not  unnat 
ural  hypothesis  which  served  to  temporarily  appease  an 
ignorance,  pardonable  in  itself,  but  now  no  longer  neces 
sary." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  13. 

There  is  but  one  similarity  that  might  indicate  a  con 
nection  between  the  peoples  of  the  two  sections — they 
both  erected  pyramidal  mounds  upon  which  they  built 
their  edifices.  But  here  the  analogy  ends,  for  those  north 
of  Mexico  are  minus  the  ricnly-sculptured  and  richly-or 
namented  temples  which  crown  the  summits  of  those  in 
Central  America.  This  leads  us  to  conclude  that,  while 
the  art  gems  of  each  people  undoubtedly  came  from  a 
common  source,  they  must  have  diverged  at  a  time  when 


248  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

the  two  were  in  a  savage  state,  before  the  invention  of 
sculpturing,  hieroglyphical  writing  and  other  arts  for 
which  the  Mayas  were  justly  famous  and  which  were  not 
practiced  by  the  Mound  Builders. 

On  this  point  Thomas  remarks :  "It  is  true  that  trun 
cated  pyramidal  mounds  of  large  size  and  somewhat 
regular  proportions  are  found  in  certain  sections,  and 
that  some  of  these  have  ramps  or  roadways  leading  up 
to  them.  Yet  when  compared  with  the  pyramids  or 
teocalli  of  Mexico  and  Yucatan  the  differences  in  the 
manifestations  of  architectural  skill  are  so  great,  and  the 
resemblances  are  so  faint  and  few,  as  to  furnish  no 
grounds  whatever  for  attributing  the  two  classes  of 
works  to  the  same  people.  The  facts  that  the  works  of 
the  one  people  consist  chiefly  of  wrought  and  sculptured 
stone,  and  that  such  materials  are  wholly  unknown  to 
the  other,  forbid  the  idea  of  any  relationship  between  the 
two.  The  difference  between  the  two  classes  of  monu 
ments  indicates  a  wide  divergence — a  complete  step— 4n 
the  culture  status." — The  Problem  of  the  Ohio  Mounds; 
p.  14. 

There  is,  likewise,  no  evidence  of  a  national  connec 
tion  between  the  ancient  peoples  of  South  America  and 
those  of  Central  America  and  Mexico.  At  the  Discovery 
the  Peruvians  were  wholly  unlike  the  Mayas  and  Nahuas 
in  religion,  government,  language,  architecture  and  sculp 
turing,  and  their  remains  indicate  that  these  differences 
had  existed  from  the  time  the  two  peoples  began  to  walk 
in  the  pathway  of  civilization. 

The  theory  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  is  that  the  people 
who  built  the  most  ancient  cities  of  Peru  were  those  of 
the  second  epoch  of  civilization  in  Central  America  and 
Mexico.  But  this  theory  is  untenable,  for  the  reason 
that  the  Peruvians  and  Central  Americans  had  no  con- 


CUM 0 RAH   REVISITED  249 

nection  after  they  began  the  erection  of  those  cities 
attributed  by  the  Mormons  to  Jaredite  and  Nephite 
workmanship.  In  other  words,  the  separation  of  the  two 
peoples  dates  back  to  a  period  preceding  any  to  which 
we  are  carried  by  the  archaeological  evidences.  So  far 
as  the  evidence  goes,  the  civilizations  of  the  two  sections 
were  indigenous  and  were  developed  wholly  independent 
of  each  other. 

Says  Baldwin:  "It  may  be  that  all  the  old  American 
civilizations  had  a  common  origin  in  South  America,  and 
that  all  the  ancient  Americans  whose  civilization  can  be 
traced  in  remains  found  north  of  the  Isthmus  came  origi 
nally  from  that  part  of  the  continent.  This  hypothesis 
appears  to  me  more  probable  than  any  other  I  have  heard 
suggested.  But,  assuming  this  to  be  true,  the  first  migra 
tion  of  civilized  people  from  South  America  must  have 
taken  place  at  a  very  distant  period  in  the  past,  for  it 
preceded  not  only  the  history  indicated  by  the  existing 
antiquities,  but  also  an  earlier  history,  during  which  the 
Peruvians  and  Central  Americans  grew  to  be  as  different 
from  their  ancestors  as  from  each  other.  In  each  case 
the  development  of  civilization  represented  by  existing 
monuments,  so  far  as  we  can  study  it,  appears  to  have 
been  original." — Ancient  America,  p.  246. 

The  "existing  antiquities"  of  Peru  are,  many  of  them, 
identified  by  the  Committee  with  the  works  of  the  Ne- 
phites.  The  ancient  city  of  Cuzco  is  identified  with  the 
Book  of  Mormon  city  of  Nephi ;  Huanuco,  with  Ishmael ; 
Gran  Chimu,  or  Trujillo,  with  Middoni;  Riobamba,  with 
Amulon,  and  Cuelap-Tingo,  with  Lehi-Nephi.  But,  if 
Baldwin  is  correct,  these  cities  were  built  after,  not 
before,  the  separation  of  the  peoples  of  Peru  and  Central 
America. 

Bancroft  sustains  Baldwin :  "The  Maya  and  Peruvian 


250  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

peoples  may  have  been  one  in  remote  antiquity;  if  so,  the 
separation  took  place  at  a  period  long  preceding  any  to 
which  we  are  carried  by  the  material  relics  of  the 
Votanic  empire" — those  said  to  have  been  erected  by  the 
Jaredites — "and  of  the  most  ancient  epoch  of  the  south 
ern  civilization,  or  even  by  traditional  annals  and  the 
vaguest  myths." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  806. 

This  is  putting  the  separation  of  the  two  peoples  back 
of  the  erection  of  those  monuments  which  are  attributed 
to  the  Jaredites,  making  it  wholly  impossible  for  a  people 
from  Peru  to  have  built  any  of  the  cities  of  Central 
America,  or  to  have  been  under  the  same  government 
with  their  builders. 

The  facts,  therefore,  seem  to  show  that  the  two 
civilized  nations  of  Central  America  and  Mexico  were 
confined,  in  their  civilizations  and  governments,  to  the 
central  region,  and  to  the  central  region  alone,  and  that 
they  had  no  control  over  any  people  or  territory  south 
of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  or  north  of  the  northern 
boundary-line  of  Mexico.  Therefore  they  could  not 
have  been  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

THE  TRADITIONAL  HISTORY  OF  THE  TOLTECS  PRESENTS   NO 

FEATURES   SIMILAR  TO   THE   HISTORY   OF  THE 

NEPHITES. 

Elder  Stebbins  thinks  that  the  Toltecs  were  the 
Nephites.  He  says:  "I  believe  that  the  people  spoken 
of  in  tradition  and  in  history  as  the  Toltecs  are  those 
named  Nephites  in  the  Book  of  Mormon." — Lectures, 
p.  230. 

If  this  is  true,  we  may  expect  to  find  in  their  tradi 
tions  proofs  by  which  this  identification  may  be  con 
firmed.  But,  unfortunately  for  Elder  Stebbins,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  traditions  to  substantiate  his  theory,  as 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  251 

will  be   seen   in   the    following  brief   historical   account. 

It  appears  that  the  first  movement  of  the  Nahuas  into 
Central  America  occurred  after  the  Mayas  had  become 
fully  settled  in  the  Usumacinta  Valley.  At  the  time  of 
their  immigration  the  Mayas  were  in  the  height  of  their 
glory,  their  government  comprising  within  its  jurisdic 
tion  the  states  of  Chiapas,  Tabasco,  Yucatan,  Guatemala 
and  western  Honduras.  There  are  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  Nahuas  founded  their  capital  at  Tulan  in  Chi 
apas,  and  that,  after  living  peaceably  side  by  side  with 
the  Xibalbans  for  a  number  of  years,  they  finally  devel 
oped  sufficient  strength  to  overthrow  their  old,  effete 
empire.  Following  the  fall  of  Xibalba  the  Nahua  power 
continued  to  increase  until  about  the  fifth  century,  when 
it  ended  "in  revolt,  disaster  and  a  general  scattering  of 
the  tribes."  With  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  Toltec 
supremacy  was  achieved  in  Mexico.  It  is  probable  that, 
with  the  scattering  of  the  Nahua  people,  many  of  them 
moved  northward  into  that  country  and  passed  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Toltecs,  who  may  have  been  originally 
but  a  small  tribe  or  a  ruling  family.  The  Toltec  con 
federacy  was  composed  of  three  small  kingdoms  named 
from  capital  cities,  Culhuacan,  Otompan  and  Tollan,  each 
of  which  had  its  turn  as  the  ruling  power.  Culhuacan 
and  Otompan  corresponded  very  nearly  with  the  Aztec 
states,  Mexico  and  Tezcuco;  Tollan  joined  them  on  the 
northwest.  The  date  of  the  Toltec  departure  from  Hue 
Hue  Tlapallan  is  given  differently  by  different  writers. 
Ixtlilxochitl  gives  two  dates,  338  and  439;  Veytia  gives 
596;  Clavigero,  544  or  596,  and  Muller,  439.  It  is  wholly 
impossible  to  determine  the  date  positively,  but  544  A.  D. 
is  the  one  adopted  by  most  of  the  later  writers  as  being 
the  nearest  correct. 

The  story  of  the  departure  of  the  Toltecs  and  their 


252  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

subsequent  settlement  in  Mexico  is,  briefly,  as  follows. 
Chalcatzin  and  Tlacamihtzin,  two  chiefs  of  royal  blood, 
undertook  to  depose  the  king  of  Hue  Hue  Tlapallan, 
with  the  result  that  they  and  their  followers  were  driven 
out  of  their  kingdom  and  were  forced  to  flee  for  their 
lives.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  Toltec  migration 
from  the  north,  which  lasted,  according  to  Ixtlilxochitl, 
104  years.  Their  first  capital  in  the  land  of  Mexico  was 
Tollantzinco,  where  they  dwelt  eight  years,  until  their 
removal  to  Tollan,  where  the  Toltec  empire  proper  was 
founded.  Seven  years  after  their  establishment  at  Tollan 
the  chiefs,  seven  in  number,  came  together  to  effect  a 
permanent  union  between  their  bands,  and,  by  the  advice 
of  their  prophet,  Hueman,  sent  an  embassy  with  presents 
to  the  court  of  the  Chichimec  king,  Icauhtzin,  who  gave 
them  his  second  son,  Chalchiuh  Tlatonac,  to  be  their  first 
sovereign.  This  young  man  was  renowned  for  his  fine 
personal  appearance,  wisdom  and  goodly  character,  and 
for  the  excellent  service  he  rendered  his  people.  Soon 
after  ascending  the  throne  the  young  king  decided  to 
take  a  wife,  and  chose  as  his  queen  the  beautiful  daugh 
ter  of  Acapichtzin,  one  of  the  Toltec  chiefs.  The  history 
of  the  Toltecs  from  this  on  is  very  confused,  and  tj 
obtain  a  correct  list  of  their  kings  is  impossible  owing  to 
this  confusion  and  to  the  custom  which  they  had  of  giv 
ing  a  number  of  names  to  the  same  ruler  according  to 
his  power  and  prominence.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  for  five 
centuries  the  Toltec  government  exercised  the  strongest 
influence  in  Mexico  of  any.  Its  cities  were  renowned 
for  their  splendor,  its  kings  for  their  power,  its  armies 
for  their  valor,  its  people  for  their  progress  and  skill, 
and  its  religion  for  its  bloodlessness,  human  sacrifices 
being  abandoned  under  the  reign  of  one  Quetzalcoatl. 
But,  finally,  the  empire  weakened  under  the  repeated 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  253 

attacks  of  the  Chichimecs,  and  the  last  Toltec  king, 
Topiltzin,  was  forced  to  flee,  following  which  the  coun 
try  passed  under  Chichimec  rule.1 

There  has  been  much  written  concerning  the  Toltecs 
which  undoubtedly  is  pure  fiction,  but  that  a  people  bear 
ing  that  name  did  exist  and  did  build  some  of  the  works 
attributed  to  them  is  accepted  as  established  by  most 
authors.  The  points  derived  from  these  traditions,  that 
may  be  accepted  as  in  a  true  sense  historical,  are  ( I )  the 
general  tendency  of  Nahuatl  migrations  from  north  to 
south;  (2)  the  founding  of  the  Toltec  kingdom  in  the 
sixth  or  seventh  century  and  its  continuance  for  a  few 
hundred  years;  (3)  the  confinement  of  its  government 
to  central  and  southern  Mexico ;  and  (4)  the  prosperity 
of  its  capital  cities,  Culhuacan,  Otompan  and  Tollan. 

Let  the  reader  compare  this  brief  outline  of  Toltec 
history  with  that  of  the  Nephites,  and  he  will  find  no 
agreement  at  all  by  which  to  confirm  the  belief  of  Mr. 
Stebbins  that  the  Toltecs  and  Nephites  were  one  and  the 
same  people. 

Not  only  are  the  traditions  devoid  of  any  historical 
similarity  to  the  account  of  the  Nephites,  but  there  is 
also  no  resemblance  between  the  names  of  men  and  of 
places  given  in  these  traditions  and  those  given  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon. 

TOLTEC  CHARACTERS.        NEPHITE  CHARACTERS. 

Chalcatzin.  Nephi. 

Tlacamihtzin.  Ammon. 

Hueman.  Helaman. 

Chalchiuh  Tlatonac.  Alma. 

Totepeuh.  Amaron. 

Huetzin.  Amulek. 


1  "Native  Races,"  Vol.   VM  Chapter  IV. 


254 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


Quetzalcoatl. 

Topiltzin. 

Mitl. 

Papantzin. 

Chicon  Tonatiuh. 

Nauhyotl. 


Lachoneus. 

Hagoth. 

Mosiah. 

Gideon. 

Mormon. 

Moroni. 


TOLTEC  CITIES  AND  PLACES.       NEPHITE  CITIES  AND  PLACES. 


Culhuacan. 

Otompan. 

Tollan. 

Tollantzinco. 

Cholula. 

Teotihuacan. 

Quauhtitlan. 

Jalisco. 

Tultitlan. 

Xico. 


Teancum. 

Angola. 

Boaz. 

Desolation 

David. 

Joshua. 

Shem. 

Jordan. 

Shim. 

Mulek. 


In  this  chapter  seven  arguments  have  been  presented 
against  the  claim  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Central 
America  and  Mexico  were  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 
They  are,  briefly:  (i)  The  ancient  inhabitants  of  those 
regions,  judging  from  various  evidences,  were  of  the 
present  race.  (2)  The  first  people  of  Central  America 
were  savages  instead  of  civilized  men,  as  the  Book  of 
Mormon  declares.  (3)  The  ancient  peoples  came  from 
the  north  instead  of  from  the  east  or  south,  as  the 
Jaredites  and  Nephites  are  said  to  have  come.  (4)  These 
ancient  peoples  were  here  at  the  same  time  and  not  con 
secutively,  as  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites  are  said  to  have 
been.  (5)  The  oldest  civilized  people  of  Central  Amer 
ica,  those  who  built  Palenque,  Copan  and  Quirigua,  are 
not  an  extinct  race  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Jaredites  are 
said  to  be  extinct.  (6)  The  aboriginal  governments  of 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  255 

these  peoples  were  confined  to  Central  America  and 
Mexico  and  had  no  control  over  tribes  north  of  Mexico 
or  south  of  the  Isthmus.  And  (7)  the  traditional  history 
of  the  Toltecs  presents  no  points  of  agreement,  in  either 
names  or  details,  or  even  in  general  outline,  with  the  his 
tory  of  the  Nephites  as  given  in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 
I  think  from  these  considerations  that  the  identification 
made  by  Mormon  writers  of  the  "two  distinct  peoples" 
of  Bancroft  and  Short  with  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites 
may  be  safely  dismissed  as  fanciful  and  erroneous.1 

1  In  this  chapter  and  elsewhere  in  this  book,  I  have  followed  DeBour- 
bourg  and  have  employed  the  terms  "Colhuas"  and  "Xibalba"  as  names 
for  the  ancient  Central  American  people  and  their  empire.  I  have  so 
employed  these  terms,  fully  aware  that  such  an  application  of  them  is 
objected  to  by  many  learned  scholars,  in  the  absence  of  better  designations. 
"Colhua"  is  the  Nahua  term  for  "ancestors,"  while  "Xibalba"  is  the 
Quiche  name  for  the  underworld  and  literally  means  "the  place  of  dis 
appearance." 


256  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER   VI. 

Were  the  Mound  Builders  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites? — History 
of  the  Discussion  of  the  Nationality  of  the  Mound  Builders 
— The  Theory  of  the  Mormons  on  the  Nationality  of  the 
Mound  Builders — The  Mound  Builders  One  People,  Not  Two 
— The  Mound  Builders  Not  One  Nation,  but  Many  Tribes — 
The  Direction  of  Mound  Builder  Migration — The  Antiquity 
of  the  Mounds — The  Culture  of  the  Mound  Builders — The 
Mound  Builders  Neither  Jaredites  nor  Nephites,  but  La- 
manites. 

The  name  "Mound  Builders"  is  applied  to  the  ancient 
people  who  built  the  mounds  and  earthen  fortifications 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  confessed  on  all  sides  that 
it  is  only  a  convenient  term,  and  that  it  is  used  in 
want  of  a  better  designation.  No  question  in  American 
archaeology  has  provoked  more  discussion  than  has  the 
question  of  the  nationality  of  this  people."  For  a  long 
time  the  majority  of  archaeologists  believed  them  to  be  a 
vanished  race  of  high  culture,  distinct  from  the  Indian 
tribes  who  inhabited  the  mound  region  at  the  coming  of 
the  whites.  But  this  theory,  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century,  has  been  fully  refuted,  and  the  opposite  theory, 
that  they  were  only  tribes  of  American  Indians,  has  been 
established. 

On  the  history  of  the  discussion  of  the  nationality  of 
the  Mound  Builders,  Professor  Thomas  writes: 

"About  the  commencement  of  the  nineteenth  century 
two  new  and  important  characters  appear  on  the  stage 
of  American  archaeology.  These  are  Bishop  Madison, 
of  Virginia,  and  Rev.  Thaddeus  M.  Harris,  of  Massa 
chusetts.  'These  two  gentlemen/  as  remarked  by  Dr. 
Haven,  .  .  .  'are  among  the  first  who,  uniting  oppor- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  257 

tunities  of  personal  observation  to  the  advantages  of 
scientific  culture,  imparted  to  the  public  their  impressions 
of  Western  antiquities.  They  represent  the  two  classes 
of  observers  whose  opposite  views  still  divide  the  senti 
ment  of  the  country ;  one  class  seeing  no  evidence  of  art 
beyond  what  might  be  expected  of  existing  tribes,  with 
'the  simple  difference  of  a  more  numerous  population  and 
consequently  better  defined  and  more  permanent  habita 
tions  ;  the  other  finding  proofs  of  skill  and  refinement,  to 
be  explained,  as  they  believe,  only  on  the  supposition 
that  a  superior  native  race,  or  more  probably  a  people 
of  foreign  and  higher  civilization,  once  occupied  the 
soil.' 

"Bishop  Madison  was  the  representative  of  the  first 
class.  Dr.  Harris  represented  that  section  of  the  second 
class  maintaining  the  opinion  that  the  mound  builders 
were  Toltecs,  who,  after  residing  for  a  time  in  this 
region,  moved  south  into  Mexico. 

"As  the  principal  theories  which  are  held  at  the  pres 
ent  day  on  this  subject  are  substantially  set  forth  in  these 
authorities,  it  is  unnecessary  to  follow  up  the  history  of 
the  controversy  except  so  far  as  is  required  in  order  to 
notice  the  various  modifications  of  the  two  leading  views. 

"Those  holding  the  opinion  that  the  Indians  were  not 
the  authors  of  these  works,  although  agreeing  on  this 
point,  and  hence  included  in  one  class,  differ  widely 
among  themselves  as  to  the  people  to  whom  they  are  to 
be  ascribed;  one  section,  of  which  Dr.  Harris  may  be 
considered  the  pioneer,  holding  that  they  were  built  by 
the  Toltecs,  who  occupied  the  Mississippi  Valley  previ 
ous  to  their  appearance  in  the  vale  of  Anahuac. 

"Among  the  more  recent  advocates  of  this  view  may 
be  classed  the  following  authors :  Messrs.  Squier  and 
Davis,  in  their  'Ancient  Monuments  of  the  Mississippi. 


258  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Valley  (though  Mr.  Squier  subsequently  changed  his 
opinion  so  far  as  it  related  to  the  antiquities  of  New 
York,  which  he  became  convinced  should  be  attributed 
to  the  Iroquois  tribes)  ;  Mr.  John  T.  Short,  in  his  'North 
Americans  of  Antiquity;'  Dr.  Dawson,  in  his  'Fossil 
Man,'  who  identifies  the  Tallegwi  with  the  Toltecs ;  Rev. 
J.  P.  McLean,  in  his  'Mound  Builders,'  and  Dr.  Joseph 
Jones,  in  his  'Antiquities  of  Tennessee.' 

"Wilson,  in  his  'Prehistoric  Man,'  modifies  this  view 
somewhat,  looking  to  the  region  south  of  Mexico  for  the 
original  home  of  the  Toltecs  and  deriving  the  Aztecs 
from  the  mound  builders. 

"Another  section  of  this  class  includes  those  who, 
although  rejecting  the  idea  of  an  Indian  origin,  are 
satisfied  with  simply  designating  the  authors  of  these 
works  a  'lost  race,'  without  following  the  inquiry  into 
the  more  uncertain  field  of  racial  or  ethnical  relations. 
To  this  type  belong  most  of  the  authors  of  recent  short 
articles  and  brief  reports  on  American  archeology,  and 
quite  a  number  of  diligent  workers  in  this  field  whose 
names  are  not  before  the  world  as  authors. 

"J.  D.  Baldwin,  in  his  'Ancient  America,'  expresses 
the  belief  that  the  mound  builders  were  Toltecs,  but 
thinks  they  came  originally  from  Mexico,  or  farther 
south,  and  after  occupying  the  Ohio  Valley  and  the  Gulf 
States,  probably  for  centuries,  were  at  last  driven  south 
ward  by  an  influx  of  barbarous  hordes  from  the  northern 
region  and  appeared  again  in  Mexico.  Bradford,  thirty 
years  previous  to  this,  had  suggested  Mexico  as  the;r 
original  home.  Lewis  H.  Morgan,  on  the  other  hand, 
supposes  that  the  authors  of  these  remains  came  from 
the  Pueblo  tribes  of  New  Mexico.  Dr.  Foster  agrees 
substantially  with  Baldwin.  In  this  general  class  may 
also  be  included  a  number  of  extravagant  hypotheses, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  259 

such  as  those  advanced  by  Rafinesque,  George  Jones, 
Delafield  and  others. 

"The  class  maintaining  the  view  that  the  monuments 
are  the  work  of  Indians  found  inhabiting  the  country  at 
the  time  of  its  discovery  or  their  ancestors,  numbered,  up 
to  a  recent  date,  but  comparatively  few  leading  author 
ities  among  its  advocates;  in  other  words,  the  followers 
of  Bishop  Madison  are,  or  at  least  were  until  recently, 
far  less  numerous  than  the  followers  of  Dr.  Harris.  The 
differences  between  the  advocates  of  this  view  are  of 
minor  importance  and  only  appear  when  the  investiga 
tion  is  carried  one  step  further  back,  and  the  attempt 
made  to  designate  the  particular  tribe,  nation,  people  or 
ethnic  family  to  which  they  pertained. 

"The  tradition  of  the  Delawares,  as  given  by  Hecke- 
welder,  having  brought  upon  the  stage  the  Tallegwi,  they 
are  made  to  play  a  most  important  part  in  the  specula 
tions  of  those  inclined  to  the  theory  of  an  Indian  origin. 
And,  as  this  tradition  agrees  very  well  with  a  number  of 
facts  brought  to  light  by  antiquarian  and  philological 
researches,  it  has  had  considerable  influence  in  shaping 
the  conclusion  even  of  those  who  are  not  professed  be 
lievers  in  it. 

"One  of  the  ablest  early  advocates  of  the  Indian 
origin  of  these  works  was  Dr.  McCulloh ;  and  his  con 
clusions,  based,  as  they  were,  on  comparatively  slender 
data  then  obtainable,  are  remarkable,  not  only  for  the 
clearness  with  which  they  are  stated  and  the  distinctness 
with  which  they  are  defined,  but  as  being  more  in  accord 
ance  with  all  the  facts  ascertained  than  perhaps  those  of 
any  contemporary. 

"Samuel  G.  Drake,  Henry  Schoolcraft,  Dr.  Haven 
and  Sir  John  Lubbock  are  also  disposed  to  ascribe  these 
ancient  works  to  the  Indians.  Among  the  recent  advo- 


2<5o  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

cates  of  this  theory  are  the  following,  who  have  made 
known  their  position  in  regard  to  the  question  by  their 
writings  or  addresses. 

"Judge  C.  C.  Baldwin,  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
State  Archaeological  Society  of  Ohio,  expresses  the  belief 
that  the  mound  builders  of  Ohio  were  village  Indians. 
Col.  F.  M.  Force  expresses  a  similar  .opinion  in  his  paper 
entitled  'The  Mound  Builders/  read  before  the  Cincin 
nati  Literary  Club.  Dr.  D.  G.  Brinton  brings  forward, 
in  an  article  published  in  the  October  number,  1881,  of 
the  American  Antiquarian,  considerable  historical  evi 
dence  tending  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Indians  were  the 
authors  of  these  ancient  works.  Dr.  P.  R.  Hoy,  in  a 
paper  entitled  'Who  Built  the  Mounds  ?'  published  in  the 
'Transactions  of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Science/ 
brings  forward  a  number  of  facts  to  sustain  the  same 
view.  Mr.  Lucien  Carr,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  in  a  paper 
entitled  'The  Mounds  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  Histori 
cally  Considered'  (contained  in  the  'Memoirs  of  the  Ken 
tucky  Geological  Survey'),  has  presented  a  very  strong 
array  of  historical  evidence,  going  to  show  not  only  that 
the  Indians  east  of  the  Mississippi,  at  the  time  they  were 
first  discovered  by  Europeans,  were  sedentary  and  agri 
cultural,  but  also  that  several  of  the  tribes  were  in  the 
habit  of  building  mounds.  Several  articles  and  two  small 
volumes  have  also  been  published  by  the  author  of  this 
volume,  taking  the  same  view.  The  articles  will  be  found 
in  the  American  Antiquarian,  Magazine  of  American 
History,  Science,  American  Anthropologist,  and  else 
where.  The  two  small  works  are  'The  Cherokees  in 
Pre-Columbian  Times'  and  'The  Shawnees  in  Pre-Colum 
bian  Times/ 

"These  recent  papers  may  justly  be  considered  the 
commencement  of  a  rediscussion  of  this  question,  in 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  261 

which  the  Indian,  after  a  long  exclusion,  will  be  read 
mitted  as  a  possible  factor  in  the  problem.  Professor 
Dall  has  likewise  taken  an  advanced  step  in  this  direction 
in  the  excellent  American  edition  of  Marquis  de  Nadail- 
lac's  'Prehistoric  America/  holding  accepting  the  results 
of  later  investigations;  and  the  same  is  true  in  regard  to 
Prof.  N.  S.  Shaler's  'Kentucky.'  "—Twelfth  Annual  Re 
port  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  pp.  598-600. 
Since  this  was  written,  eighteen  years  ago,  the  theory 
that  the  American  Indians  were  the  builders  of  these 
works  has  grown  rapidly  in  favor,  while  the  opposite 
theory  has  been  gradually  losing  ground.  From  the  dis 
coveries  that  have  been  made  it  would  seem  utterly  im 
possible  to  draw  any  line  between  the  people  who  built 
the  mounds  and  those  who  inhabited  the  mound  region 
at  the  time  of  its  settlement  by  Europeans.  Historical, 
traditional  and  archaeological  evidences  all  tend  to  sus 
tain  the  view  that  they  were  one  and  the  same  people  and 
in  about  the  same  conditions  of  life. 

THE  THEORY  OF  THE   MORMONS   ON   THE   NATIONALITY  OF 
THE   MOUND  BUILDERS. 

A  number  of  Mormon  writers  declare  that  the  people 
known  to  us  as  the  Mound  Builders  were  the  Jaredites 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Apostle 
Kelley,  who  says:  "This  history" — Book  of  Mormon — 
"is  in  harmony  with  the  Indian  tradition;  that  is,  a 
'uniform  statement'  among  them  everywhere  that  the 
mound  builders  preceded  their  nation  in  settling  in 
America.  The  mound  builders  were  here  centuries — 
twelve  centuries — before  the  progenitors  of  the  Indians 
came,  according  to  the  Book  of  Mormon." — Presidency 
and  Priesthood,  p.  263. 

Elder  Stebbins  quotes  the  following  from  Baldwin; 


262  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

"Who  were  the  Mound  Builders?  They  were  unques 
tionably  American  aborigines,  and  not  immigrants  from 
another  continent."  And  then  adds:  "Now  they  judge 
this  from  the  fact  that  their  constructions,  their  mode  of 
burial,  and  other  peculiarities,  mark  them  as  having  been 
a  separate  and  distinct  people  from  any  other  that  at  any 
time  inhabited  America.  And  we,  knowing  that  they 
came  from  the  Tower  of  Babel,  can  understand  why  they 
were  neither  Hebrews  nor  like  any  other  people  in  any 
land." — Lectures,  p.  85. 

The  people  who,  according  to  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
were  here  before  the  ancestors  of  the  Indians  came,  and 
who  came  from  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  who  were  not 
Hebrews,  were  the  Jaredites. 

But  all  Latter-day  Saints  do  not,  evidently,  agree  that 
the  Jaredites,  exclusively,  were  the  Mound  Builders,  and 
some  seem  disposed  to  give  credit  for  some  of  the 
mounds  built  to  the  Nephites.  The  Committee  on  Amer 
ican  Archaeology,  of  which  Apostle  Kelley  is  himself  a 
member,  say:  "On  entering  the  United  States,  the  Ne 
phites  settled  largely  in  the  same  sections  inhabited  by 
the  Jaredites,  the  oldest  mound  builders,  and  their 
march  to  their  final  conflict  was  along  the  same  lines." — 
Report,  p.  65. 

The  superlative  adjective  "oldest"  implies  that  there 
were  Mound  Builders  more  recent,  and  this  opinion  is 
more  in  harmony  with  the  Book  of  Mormon,  which 
seems  to  designate  very  plainly  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  as  a  part  of  both  Jaredite  and  Nephite 
dominions. 

From  the  account  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  gives,  it 
appears  that  the  country  north  of  Mexico  was  first  set 
tled  by  a  company  under  a  Jaredite  king,  Omer,  who, 
through  the  "secret  combinations"  of  one  Akish,  was 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


263 


deposed  from  his  throne  and  was  forced  to  flee  from  the 
land  of  Moron  in  Central  America.  His  journey  lay  by 
the  "hill  of  Shim,"  which  the  Committee  locate  in  Chi 
apas  ;  by  the  "place  where  the  Nephites  were  destroyed," 
which  is  at  Hill  Cumorah,  in  Wayne  County,  New  York, 
and  ended  at  "Ablom,  by  the  seashore,"  which  the  Com 
mittee  think  was  where  Boston  is  now  located.  Omer 
was  soon  afterwards  joined  by  Nimrah,  a  son  of  Akish, 
who  was  forced  to  flee  from  his  native  land  because  of 
having  been  angry  with  his  father  for  having  slain  his 
brother.  From  this  small  nucleus,  and  from  Central 
America,  the  Jaredites  spread  out  until  they  covered  "the 
whole  face  of  the  land  northward." 

Ether  gives  this  description  of  the  Jaredites  at  the 
period  of  their  greatest  glory  and  widest  extent:  "And 
the  whole  face  of  the  land  northward  was  covered  with 
inhabitants ;  and  they  were  exceeding  industrious,  and 
they  did  buy  and  sell,  and  traffic  one  with  another,  that 
they  might  get  gain.  And  they  did  work  in  all  manner 
of  ore,  and  they  did  make  gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and 
brass,  and  all  manner  of  metals ;  and  they  did  dig  it  out 
of  the-  earth;  wherefore  they  did  cast  up  mighty  heaps  of 
earth  to  get  ore,  of  gold,  and  of  silver,  and  of  iron,  and 
of  copper.  And  they  did  work  all  manner  of  fine  work. 
And  they  did  have  silks,  and  fine  twined  linen ;  and  they 
did  work  all  manner  of  cloth,  that  they  might  clothe 
themselves  from  their  nakedness.  And  they  did  make 
all  manner  of  tools  to  till  the  earth,  both  to  plough,  and 
to  sow,  to  reap  and  to  hoe,  and  also  to  thresh.  And  they 
did  make  all  manner  of  tools  with  which  they  did  work 
their  beasts.  And  they  did  make  all  manner  of  weapons 
of  war.  And  they  did  work  all  manner  of  work  of 
exceeding  curious  workmanship." — Ether  4:  7. 

On  the  spread  of  the  Nephites  throughout  the  land 


264  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

northward,  Helaman  says :  "And  it  came  to  pass  in  the 
forty  and  sixth" — year  of  the  judges,  about  44  B.  C. — 
"yea,  there  were  much  contentions  and  many  dissensions ; 
in  the  which  there  were  an  exceeding  great  many  who 
departed  out  of  the  land  of  Zarahemla" — United  States 
of  Colombia — "and  went  forth  unto  the  land  northward, 
to  inherit  the  land;  and  they  did  travel  to  an  exceeding 
great  distance,  insomuch  that  they  came  to  large  bodies 
of  water" — Great  Lakes — "and  many  rivers" — Missis 
sippi,  etc. — "yea,  and  even  they  did  spread  forth  into  all 
parts  of  the  land,  into  whatever  parts  it  had  not  been 
rendered  desolate,  and  without  timber,  because  of  the 
many  inhabitants" — Jaredites — "who  had  before  inher 
ited  the  land." — Helaman  2:1. 

In  the  next  paragraph  he  adds :  "And  it  came  tp  pass 
that  they  did  multiply  and  spread,  and  did  go  forth  from 
the  land  southward  to  the  land  northward,  and  did  spread 
insomuch  that  they  began  to  cover  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth,  from  the  sea  south  to  the  sea  north,  from  the  sea 
west  to  the  sea  east." 

The  Committee  identify  these  natural  boundaries  as 
follows:  "The  'south  sea'  was  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
the  sea  north,  most  likely,  the  lakes  or  Hudson's  Bay; 
and  the  sea  east,  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  the  sea  west, 
the  Pacific."— Report,  p.  59. 

If  these  identifications  are  correct,  the  Nephites  as 
well  as  the  Jaredites  occupied  the  territory  of  the  present 
United  States,  and  we  may  expect  to  find  evidence  show 
ing  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  this  territory  differed 
both  racially  and  culturally  from  the  American  Indians. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  shown  that  the 
builders  of  the  mounds  were  in  no  way  above  the  Ameri 
can  Indians  in  their  culture  status,  and  that  they  did  not 
differ  from  them  in  race,  the  Book  of  Mormon  is  proved 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


265 


a  fraud  and  the  ecclesiastical  structures  that  are  built 
upon  it  do  not  possess  the  authority  they  so  loudly  claim. 

THE  CLAIM  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON,  THAT  THE  TERRI 
TORY  OF  THE  PRESENT  UNITED  STATES  WAS  INHABITED 
IN  ANCIENT  TIMES,  DURING  SUCCESSIVE  EPOCHS,  BY 
TWO  DISTINCT  PEOPLES,  WITH  TWO  DISTINCT  CIVILIZA 
TIONS,  MEETS  WITH  NO  CONFIRMATION  FROM  AMERI 
CAN  ARCHAEOLOGY. 

It  can  not  be  proved  that  there  were  two  separate 
epochs  of  mound-building'  with  a  break  of  five  or  six 
hundred  years  between.  On  the  contrary,  the  analogies 
between  the  mounds,  the  similarities  that  have  been 
traced  between  the  different  works  of  art  that  have  been 
found  in  them  and  the  comparative  conditions  in  which 
they  have  been  discovered,  prove  conclusively  that  they 
were  all  built  by  one  race,  of  similar  habits  and  customs, 
though  divided  into  various  tribes,  and  not  by  two  dis 
tinct  peoples  of  widely  different  races  and  during  suc 
cessive  epochs.  This  is  so  clear  that  I  know  of  no 
archaeologist  who  disputes  it. 

"They  were  probably  one  people ;  that  is,  composed 
of  tribes  living  under  similar  laws,  religion  and  other 
institutions." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  785. 

"There  must  have  been  separate,  although  cognate, 
nations." — Mound  Builders,  p.  140. 

"The  analogy  between  the  mounds  is  such  that  they 
can  not  but  be  the  work  of  a  people  in  about  the  same 
stage  of  culture." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  184. 

"They  are  all  built  by  one  people." — Footprints  of 
Vanished  Races,  p.  39. 

"This  renders  it  highly  probable  that  there  was  no 
manifest  break  in  the  mound-building  age.  It  may  have 
continued,  and  probably  did,  for  many  centuries,  but 


266  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

there  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  found  in  the  monuments 
that  there  were  two  distinct  mound-building  ages." — 
Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian  Times,  p.  97. 

Other  writers  whose  works  I  have  examined,  and 
who  agree  with  the  above  as  implied  in  what  they  have 
written,  but  who  have  not  made  statements  concise 
enough  to  be  quoted  here,  are  Nott  and  Gliddon,  Brad 
ford,  Fontaine,  Donnelly,  Foster,  Short,  Winchell,  Sha- 
ler,  Powell,  Brinton,  Moorehead,  Carr  and  Dellenbaugh. 
To  all  these  authors,  no  matter  what  their  opinions  on 
the  nationality  of  the  builders  of  the  mounds  are,  the 
name  Mound  Builders  stands  for  one  people,  a  single 
race,  and  not  for  two  peoples  separated  from  each  other 
by  a  period  of  five  or  six  hundred  years. 

IT  IS  POSITIVELY  DENIED  THAT  THE  MOUND  BUILDERS,  AS 
THE  JAREDITES  AND  NEPHITES  ARE  SAID  TO  HAVE  BEEN, 
WERE,,  AT  ANY  TIME  IN  THEIR  HISTORY,  ALL  UNDER 
ONE  GOVERNMENT  EITHER  INDEPENDENT  OF  OR  SUB 
JECT  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  CENTRAL  AMERICA. 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  certain  that  they  were  divided 
up  into  a  number  of  independent  tribes  who  were  often 
at  war  with  one  another,  and  who  were  evidently  of 
different  stocks,  though  belonging  to  the  same  great  race 
and  possessing  about  the  same  degree  of  culture. 

On  this  point  Thomas  writes :  "One  result  of  the 
more  recent  explorations  and  study  of  the  ancient  works 
of  the  mound  region  in  the  conviction  that  the  mound 
builders  were  divided  into  numerous  tribes,  though  be 
longing  substantially  to  the  same  culture  state,  which 
was  of  a  lower  grade  than  that  attained  by  the  people 
of  Mexico  and  Central  America,  and  apparently  some 
what  less  advanced  than  that  of  the  Pueblo  tribes  of  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona.  However,  there  are  no  data  to 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  267 

justify  the  belief  that  they  pertained  to  different  'races/ 
using  this  term  in  its  broad  and  legitimate  sense." — 
Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian  Times,  p.  65. 

And  MacLean  remarks:  "There  is  one  thing  that 
impresses  itself  upon  the  mind  of  the  investigator,  viz. : 
that,  owing  to  the  manner  in  which  they  lived,  the  extent 
of  territory  occupied  and  the  diversity  of  the  works, 
there  could  not  have  been  a  central  government,  but 
there  must  have  been  separate,  although  cognate,  na 
tions." — Mound  Builders,  p.  140. 

The  mound  territory  proper  is  to  be  divided  into  a 
number  of  sections,  as,  for  instance,  the  New  York  sec 
tion,  the  Ohio  section,  the  Wisconsin  section,  etc.  The 
remains  in  each  of  these  States  bear  evidence  of  having 
been  built  by  different  tribes,  possessing  slightly  different 
habits  and  customs  and  prompted  by  different  motives, 
instead  of  by  tribes  under  one  central  government.  And 
many  of  these  sections  are  to  be  resubdivided  upon  crani- 
ological  and  archaeological  grounds. 

It-  is  now  conceded,  even  by  those  who  have  con 
tended  that  the  Mound  Builders  are  a  vanished  race,  that 
the  mounds  and  inclosures  of  New  York  were  the  work 
of  the  Iroquois  tribes.  And  it  must  be  admitted  that 
some  at  least  of  the  great  structures  of  the  Gulf  States 
were  erected  by  the  Muskokis.  Here,  then,  we  have  two 
sections  of  the  mound  region  clearly  established  and 
separated  from  each  other  and  the  rest. 

The  effigy-mound  people  of  Wisconsin  were  evidently 
a  different  tribe,  or  were  different  tribes,  from  those  who 
lived  elsewhere  in  the  country,  and  were  most  likely  gov 
erned  by  different  social  and  religious  ideas.  And  the 
same  may  be  said  for  the  stone-grave  people  of  Ten 
nessee. 

As  for  Ohio,  Moorehead  has  very  plainly  shown  that 


268  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

the  State  was  formerly  the  home  of  two  hostile  and 
savage  mound-building  tribes,  the  "long-heads"  of  the 
valley  of  the  Muskingum  and  the  "short-heads"  of  the 
valleys  of  the  Miami  and  the  Scioto,  and  that  these  were 
almost  constantly  at  war  with  each  other.1 

To  claim  that  these  tribes  were  only  divisions  of  one 
great  political  body  is  absurd  and  foundationless.  Each 
had  its  own  petty  government  and  practiced  its  own 
primitive  habits  and  customs,  which  we  shall  see  pres 
ently  were  far  below  the  standard  given  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon. 

THE  MOUND  BUILDERS  DID  NOT  COME  FROM  THE  SOUTH,  AS 
THE  JAREDITES  AND  NEPHITES  ARE  SAID  TO  HAVE  COME, 
BUT  FROM  THE  NORTH  OR  THE  NORTHWEST. 

I  am  aware  that  this  is  not  only  contradictory  to  the 
Book  of  Mormon  and  to  the  theory  of  its  defenders,  but 
that  it  is  also  contradictory  to  a  number  of  those  earlier 
opinions  according  to  which  the  mounds  were  built  by  a 
people  who  were  an  offshoot  of  the  Maya  and  Nahua 
nations,  and  whose  culture  was  a  well-developed  product 
from  the  south.  Nevertheless,  the  theory  of  a  northern, 
or  northwestern,  derivation  is  more  consistent  with  the 
data  which  we  have  at  hand.  Let  us  first  consider  the 
arguments  that  have  been  advanced  to  prove  the  south 
ern  origin  of  the  Mound  Builders. 

i.  It  was  long  believed  that  the  Mound  Builders  must 
have  come  from  the  south,  as  it  was  thought  a  chain  of 
aboriginal  works  could  be  traced  from  Mexico  through 
Texas  into  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Baldwin  says  of 
them :  "This  ancient  race  seems  to  have  occupied  nearly 
the  whole  basin  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries, 
with  the  fertile  plains  along  the  Gulf,  and  their  settle- 

1  "Primitive  Man  in  Ohio,"  pp.    197-199. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  269 

merits  were  continued  across  the  Rio  Grande  into  Mex 
ico." — Ancient  America,  p.  32. 

But  this  claim  is  false,  and  can  not  stand  in  the  light 
of  recent  investigations.  Says  Professor  Thomas:  "The 
statement  frequently  made  by  authors  that  the  mound 
distribution  continues  through  Texas  is  incorrect." — 
American  Archaeology,  p.  60.  This,  then,  breaks  the 
supposed  chain  of  connection  between  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  Mexico. 

2.  It  has  also  been  asserted  that  pipes  have  been 
found  in  the  mounds  carved  to  represent  a  beast  and  birds 
that  belong  to  a  tropical  climate,  and  this  has  been  eager 
ly  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  theory  of  the  southern 
origin  of  the  Mound  Builders.  Squier  and  Davis,  during 
their  researches  among  the  mounds  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  in  1845-47,  found  forty-five  of  these  pipes,  seven 
of  which  they  claimed  were  carvings  of  the  manatee, 
three  others  of  the  toucan,  while  one  they  thought  repre 
sented  the  paraquet.  Wilson,  in  his  "Prehistoric  Man," 
Vol.  I.,  p.  475,  declares  that  the  close  fidelity  of  these 
carvings  to  an  aquatic  animal  and  to  birds  of  the  south 
proves  one  of  three  things:  either  that  the  arts  of  the 
Mound  Builders  were  derived  from  a  foreign  source ;  or 
that  they  were  in  intimate  communication  with  the  civil 
ized  people  of  the  south ;  or  else  that  there  was  a  "migra 
tion  and  an  intrusion  into  the  northern  continent  of  the 
race  of  the  ancient  graves  of  central  and  southern  Amer 
ica,  bringing  with  them  the  arts  of  the  tropics  and  models 
derived  from  the  animals  familiar  to  their  fathers  in  the 
parent  land  of  the  race." 

But  this  fanciful  bubble  has  been  bursted,  and  it  is 
now  known  that  these  carvings  are  only  rude  imitations 
of  beasts  and  birds  familiar  to  the  Indian  tribes  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  and  not  models  of  those  from  the 


270  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

torrid  zone.  Mr.  H.  W.  Henshaw,  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution,  who  has  combined  a  knowledge  of  beasts  and 
birds  with  his  knowledge  of  relics,  has  ably  refuted  the 
identifications  of  Squier  and  Davis.  He  has  shown  that 
the  objects  said  to  be  manatees  have  external  ears,  feet 
instead  of  flippers,  while,  in  one  instance,  a  supposed 
manatee  has  a  fish  in  its  mouth,  notwithstanding  that 
animal  is  "strictly  herbivorous."  He  justly  concludes, 
therefore,  that  the  sculptor  intended  to  represent  an 
otter,  an  animal  with  which  all  the  Indian  tribes  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  were  well  acquainted,  and  not  a  man 
atee.  Of  the  carvings  said  to  represent  the  toucan,  he 
concludes  that  one  is  "vaguely  suggestive  of  a  young 
eagle,"  another  of  a  crow,  and  the  third  of  a  wading 
bird  of  uncertain  identification.  The  paraquet,  he  de 
cides,  is  a  member  of  the  hawk  family.  This  evidence, 
then,  so  long  depended  upon,  has  no  force  whatever  in 
proving  the  southern  origin  of  our  Mound  Builders. 
Mr.  Henshaw  concludes  his  examination  by  saying: 
"The  state  of  art  culture  reached  by  the  Mound  Build 
ers,  as  illustrated  by  their  carvings,  has  been  greatly 
overestimated." — Second  Ann.  Rept.  Bu.  Amer.  Ethno., 
p.  166. 

3.  But,  perhaps,  the  architectural  analogy,  which  has 
been  traced  between  the  temple  mounds  of  the  two  re 
gions,  has  been  urged  with  greater  persistency  than  any 
other  evidence  as  proof  that  the  Mound  Builders  came 
from  Central  America.  In  both  sections  the  people  built 
truncated  pyramids  and  employed  them  as  bases  for 
buildings.  But  here  the  analogy  ends.  Those  at  the 
south  were  foundations  for  magnificent  and  gorgeously 
decorated  temples,  while  those  at  the  north  were  em 
ployed  as  bases  for  wooden  structures  which  long  ago 
disappeared.  Now,  it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  271 

a  people  with  highly  developed  arts,  migrating  from 
Central  America  into  the  Mississippi  Valley,  into  a 
country  of  equal  or  superior  advantages  for  the  practice 
of  their  arts,  and  in  constant  intercourse  with  the  mother 
country,  should  degenerate  so  far  as  to  give  up  entirely 
the  use  of  sculptured  stone  and  mortar  for  wood  and 
earth.  And  yet  this  must  have  been  the  case  if  the  Book 
of  Mormon  is  a  true  history  of  ancient  America,  for 
neither  cut  stone  nor  mortar  were  used  by  the  Mound 
Builders. 

The  bare  fact  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  both 
sections  erected  pyramids  with  flattened  summits  does 
not  prove  that  they  were  nationally  related,  although  it 
may  prove  that  the  art  germ  of  each  came  from  the 
same  source.  If  this  architectural  similarity  proves 
migration  in  any  direction,  it  does  in  the  direction  from 
north  to  south,  and  we  may  look  upon  the  culture  of 
Central  America  as  being  a  development  of  that  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  instead  of  the  culture  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley  being  a  retrogression  from  that  of  Central 
America.  In  the  New  World,  as  well  as  in  the  Old, 
the  trend  was  upward,  not  downward;  forward,  not 
backward. 

In  contradiction  to  the  theory  that  the  Mound  Build 
ers  came  from  the  south,  we  have  the  traditional  and 
historical  evidences  of  their  migration  from  the  north 
or  northwest.  It  can  no  longer  be  denied  that  the  Iro- 
quois,  Algonkins,  Cherokees,  Muskokis  and  Dakotas,  as 
well  as  other  tribes,  were  Mound  Builders,  and  both 
tradition  and  history  declare  that  their  movements  were 
in  southerly  and  southeasterly  directions.  "So  far  as 
linguistic  and  traditional  evidence  can  be  traced,"  says 
Thomas,  "it  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  the  general 
movement,  in  prehistoric  times,  of  the  stocks  in  the 


272  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

United  States  was  toward  the  south  and  the  southeast." 
— American  Archaeology,  p.  157. 

The  traditions  of  the  Iroquois,  as  recorded  by  Col- 
den,  Cusick,  Morgan  and  Hale,  tell  us  that  this  stock 
originally  dwelt  north  of  the  Great  Lakes,  from  which 
country  they  migrated  southward  into  New  York  and 
adjacent  States.  Cartier,  in  1535,  found  them  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  in  territory  which  seventy  years  afterward 
was  in  possession  of  the  Algonkin  tribes.  That  they 
were  Mound  Builders  is  conceded  by  both  Squier  and 
Baldwin,  who  were  leading  advocates  of  the  vanished- 
race  theory. 

The  Cherokees  are  a  remote  offshoot  of  the  Iroquoian 
stock.  This  relationship  was  first  suspected  by  Barton 
over  a  century  ago;  advocated  by  Gallatin  and  Hale 
later,  and  positively  established  by  Hewitt  in  1887.  With 
this  claim  their  traditions  agree,  according  to  which  they 
came  from  the  north.  Brinton  declares  that  they 
"erected  mounds  as  sites  for  their  houses  and  for  burial- 
places." 

The  Algonkins,  certain  tribes  of  whom  were  Mound 
Builders,  also  came  from  the  north.  Gallatin,  in  his 
"Synopsis  of  the  Indian  Tribes,"  expresses  the  opinion 
that  the  Algonkins  dwelling  north  of  the  Great  Lakes 
are  the  original  stock.  Dr.  Hale,  from  the  name  of  their 
country,  Shinaki,  "land  of  fir-trees,"  decides  that  these 
tribes  must  have  originally  inhabited  the  woody  region 
north  of  Lake  Superior,  while  Dr.  Brinton  thinks  that 
their  early  home  must  have  been  north  of  the  St.  Law 
rence  and  east  of  Lake  Ontario. 

Professor  Thomas,  whose  opinion  on  this  point  is  the 
same  as  that  of  Gallatin  and  Hale,  after  making  a  special 
study  of  the  aboriginal  migrations  of  this  stock,  con 
cludes  that  the  Lenapes  crossed  to  the  south  side  of  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


273 


lakes  in  the  region  of  Michilimackinac,  after  which  they 
divided  into  three  branches,  the  Shawnees  going  south, 
the  Miamis  settling  in  southern  Michigan,  and  the  rest, 
the  Delawares,  Nanticokes  and  other  tribes,  moving 
onward  toward  the  Atlantic  Coast.  The  Chippeways, 
Ottawas  and  Pottawatamies,  he  thinks,  came  from  the 
same  quarter  and  by  the  same  route.  The  Mascoutens, 
passing  down  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Michigan,  went 
round  the  lake  into  Wisconsin.  And  the  Sacs  and 
Foxes,  moving  down  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Huron 
and  coming  in  contact  with  the  Hurons,  were  forced  to 
change  their  course  westward  across  Michigan  into  the 
same  State.1  Not  a  few  of  these  tribes  are  known  to 
have  been  Mound-  Builders.  Thomas  assigns  to  the 
Delawares  the  box-shaped  stone  graves  of  the  Delaware 
Valley  and  most  of  those  in  Ohio,  and  to  their  kindred, 
the  Shawnees,  the  stone  graves  and  mounds  south  of 
the  Ohio  in  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  northern  Georgia, 
and  such  works  as  Fort  Hill  and  Fort  Ancient  in  the 
State  of  Ohio.  The  Chippeways  have  also  built  mounds 
within  the  historic  period,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  the 
works  in  the  vicinity  of  Laporte,  Ind.,  and,  in  fact,  those 
throughout  southwestern  Michigan  and  northwestern 
Indiana,  were  thrown  up  by  the  Miamis,  Sacs  (Sauks) 
and  Pottawatamies. 

That  the  Muskokis  were  Mound  Builders  is  a  fact  of 
history  to  be  found  in  the  books  written  by  the  early 
Spanish  and  French  explorers  and  settlers  of  the  lower 
Mississippi  Valley.  "Their  legends,"  says  Brinton,  "re 
ferred  to  the  west  and  the  northwest  as  the  direction 
whence  their  ancestors  had  wandered." 

As  it  is  a  fact  of  history,  tradition  and  archaeology 

1  "American  Archaeology,"  pp.   158,   159. 


274  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

that  the  tribes  just  mentioned  erected  mounds,  we  enter 
the  discussion  with  the  presumption  that  they  v/ere  the 
Mound  Builders.  And,  as  they  all  came  into  their  his 
toric  seats  from  the  north  or  northwest,  we  may  con 
sider  it  reasonably  certain  that  all  the  mound-building 
tribes  came  from  those  directions,  and  not  from  the 
south,  as  the  Book  of  Mormon  teaches. 

THE  MOUND-BUILDING  EPOCH  BEGAN  AND  ENDED  TOO  LATE 
FOR  THE  MOUND  BUILDERS  TO  HAVE  BEEN  THE  JARED- 
ITES  AND  NEPHITES. 

Many  different  opinions  have  been  expressed  rmong 
archaeologists  as  to  the  age  of  the  mounds.  As  already 
mentioned,  Baldwin  is  disposed  to  identify  their  builders 
with  the  Toltecs,  which,  according  to  his  theory,  would 
necessitate  them  leaving  the  valleys  at  least  one  thou 
sand  years  before  Christ,  back  of  which  he  would  have 
"a  very  long  period"  during  which  they  flourished  in 
their  ancient  seats.1  Foster  agrees  substantially  with 
Baldwin.2  Nott  and  Gliddon  are  also  of  the  opinion  that 
the  Mound  Builders  were  the  Toltecs,  but,  as  they  defer 
the  latter 's  advent  into  Mexico  to  the  seventh  century 
A.  D.,  they  would  give  the  mound-building  age  a  much 
more  recent  close.3  Bancroft  thinks  that  a  thousand 
years  must  have  elapsed  since  some  of  the  works  were 
abandoned.4  Donnelly,  who  also  is  of  the  opinion  that 
the  Mound  Builders  immigrated  into  Mexico,  has  them 
leave  the  valleys  at  some  time  between  29  A.  D.  and  231 
A.  D.5  Short  is  of  the  opinion  that  a  thousand  or  two 
thousand  years  must  have  elapsed  since  they  left  their 

1  "Ancient  America,"  pp.   51,  52. 

2  "Prehistoric    Races,"    p.    341. 

8  "Types  of   Mankind,"   p.   286. 

*  "Native   Races,"   Vol.    IV.,   p.    790. 

5  "Atlantis,"   p.   384. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  275 

original  seats,  and  eight  hundred  since  they  left  the  Gulf 
Coast.1  And  Professor  Shaler,  who  believes  that  they 
were  not  distinct  from  the  American  Indians,  would 
bring  the  mound-building  period  to  a  close  about  1000 
A.  D.,  but  claims  that  they  "had  not  quite  abandoned 
the  mound-building  habit  when  they  came  in  contact 
with  the  whites." '' 

Later  research  makes  it  necessary  to  reject  the  as 
sumption  of  a  very  great  antiquity  for  the  mounds. 
There  is  no  reason  for  beginning  the  mound-building 
period  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  while  it  is  known  to 
have  closed  within  the  last  one  hundred  years. 

Johnston's  "Encyclopedia"  (Art.  "Mound  Builders") 
says  on  this  point :  "The  period  when  the  Mound  Build 
ers  flourished  has  been  differently  estimated;  but  there 
is  a  growing  tendency  to  reject  the  assumption  of  a  very 
great  antiquity.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  assigning 
any  of  the  remains  in  the  Ohio  Valley  an  age  antecedent 
to  the  Christian  era ;  and  the  final  destruction  of  their 
towns  may  well  have  been  but  a  few  generations  before 
the  discovery  of  the  continent  by  Columbus." 

Brinton  ("Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  30)  inci 
dentally  speaks  of  "the  dispersion  of  the  Mound  Build 
ers  of  the  Ohio  Valley"  as  "in  the  fifteenth  century." 
And  yet  Thomas  declares  that  some  of  the  most  remark 
able  works  of  that  State  "were  built  subsequent  to  the 
discr very  of  the  continent  by  Europeans." 

On  the  antiquity  of  the  mounds,  Dr.  C.  A.  Peterson, 
in  a  paper,  "The  Mound-building  Age  in  North  Amer 
ica,"  read  before  the  Missouri  Historical  Society  and 
published  in  the  St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch  of  February  16, 
1902,  says:  "In  conclusion,  let  it  be  reiterated  that  there 

"North   Americans  of  Antiquity,"   p.    106. 
2  "Nature   and   Man  in   America,"   p.    182. 


276  -  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

never  was  an  iota  of  evidence  in  existence  tending  to 
establish  the  contention  that  people,  other  than  the 
American  Indian,  erected  the  mounds,  nor  a  belief  that 
any  were  erected  more  than  one  thousand  years  ago." 

And,  on  the  antiquity  of  the  mound-building  epoch, 
Thomas  writes :  "As  mound-building  in  this  division  had 
not  ceased  when  Europeans  appeared  upon  the  scene,  it 
may  be  inferred  from  the  data  presented  that  one  thou 
sand  years  preceding  that  date  would  suffice  for  the 
beginning  and  development  of  the  custom  and  for  the 
construction  of  all  the  known  works.  That  it  may  have 
continued  for  a  much  longer  time  is  not  denied;  all  that 
is  claimed  here  is  that  there  is  nothing  which  has  as  yet 
been  found  pertaining  to  the  mounds  and  other  ancient 
works  of  the  division  which  bears  incontestable  evidence 
of  reaching  back  more  than  a  thousand  years  previous 
to  the  discovery  by  Columbus." — American  Archaeology, 
p.  152. 

Other  archaeologists  have  also  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  age  of  the  Mound  Builders  was  not  as  remote 
as  was  once  believed.  Judge  Force  fixed  upon  the  sev 
enth  century  as  their  most  flourishing  period.  Stronck 
began  the  mound-building  age  with  the  first  century  of 
our  era.  Hellwald  made  them  contemporary  with  Char 
lemagne.  And  Henshaw  says  that  an  antiquity  of  "a 
thousand  or  more  years  has  been  assigned  to  some  of  the 
mounds."  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  most  of  our  later 
archaeologists  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  begin 
ning  of  the  mound-building  period  is  to  be  fixed  at  a  date 
this  side  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  that  this  period  over 
lapped  tne  coming  of  the  Europeans  by  a  considerable 
numbei  of  years.  This  makes  it  impossible  for  the 
Mound  Builders  to  have  been  either  the  Jaredites  or 
Nephites. 


CUM O RAH   REVISITED  277 

Various  arguments  have  been  advanced  by  those  of 
the  opposite  school  to  prove  the  high  antiquity  of  the 
mounds,  and  as  these  have  been  employed  by  the  Mor 
mons  to  support  the  Book  of  Mormon,  I  shall  examine 
them  here. 

i.  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  mounds  are  not  found 
on  the  lowest  river  terraces,  on  account  of  which  it  has 
been  inferred  that  these  terraces  must  have  been  formed 
since  the  mounds  were  built,  and  as  centuries  are  re 
quired  for  natural  agencies  to  create  such  formations, 
it  has  been  concluded  that  a  long  period  of  time  must 
have  elapsed  since  the  Mound  Builders  ended  their  work. 
But  the  claim  that  mounds  were  not  built  upon 
the  lowest  river  terraces  is  not  strictly  true.  "Recent 
discoveries,"  says  Nadaillac,  "enable  us  to  add  that  some 
of  the  mounds  rise  from  the  most  recent  alluvial  de 
posits." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  185.  As  for  the  rest 
it  is  very  evident  that  they  were  not  built  upon  the  lower 
levels,  because  of  the  danger  from  the  immense  floods 
which  in  springtime  inundate  the  river  valleys.  When 
we  come  to  consider  that  the  difference  in  level  of  the 
upper  Mississippi  at  its  mouth  at  low  and  high  water  is 
thirty-five  feet,  that  of  the  Missouri  at  its  mouth  from 
thirty  to  .thirty-five  feet,  and  that  of  the  Ohio  at  Louis 
ville,  forty-two  feet,  we  need  go  no  further  for  the 
reason  that  these  earthworks  were  usually  built  upon 
higher  ground. 

Foster,  a  believer  in  the  high  antiquity  of  the 
mounds,  writes:  "Squier  and  Davis  hastily  stated  that 
none  of  these  works  occupied  the  alluvial  bottoms  (an 
error  which  Mr.  Squier  subsequently  corrected),  and 
from  this  statement  the  most  erroneous  conclusions  as 
to  their  antiquity  have  been  drawn.  There  is  nothing 
to  indicate  but  that  these  works  were  constructed  after 


278  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

the  surface  had  assumed  its  present  configuration,  and 
that  the  climate  had  become  essentially  as  it  is  now. 
That  they  should  not  occur  as  abundantly  on  the  bottoms 
as  on  the  terraces,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  when  we 
consider  the  great  fluctuations  of  the  Mississippi  and  its 
tributaries." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  172. 

And  Short,  another  advocate  of  the  high  antiquity 
of  the  mounds,  says:  "To  any  one  familiar  with  the 
great  rise  and  fall  which  takes  place  annually  in  the 
water-level  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  and  all  of  their 
tributaries,  the  fallacy  of  such  an  argument  is  at  once 
apparent." — North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  103. 

The  building  of  the  mounds  upon  elevated  grounds 
is,  therefore,  not  proof  of  their  great  age,  but  is,  with 
more  probability,  to  be  explained  by  the  supposition  that 
their  builders  chose  these  sites  in  order  to  escape  the 
floods  which  in  springtime  cover  the  lowlands  of  our 
great  American  rivers. 

2.  Another  argument,  equally  as  fallacious,  is  that  a 
great  age  is  to  be  required  for  the  mounds  in  order  to 
account  for  the  heavy  growth  of  forest  trees  upon  them. 

Trees  have  been  found  growing  on  the  mounds 
which,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  their  annual  rings,  have 
been  standing  for  three  or  four  hundred  years.  And,  as 
they  are  surrounded  by  the  decaying  bodies  of  others 
equally  as  large,  it  has  been  inferred  that  at  least  six  or 
eight  centuries,  and  very  probably  more,  have  passed 
since  the  Mound  Builders  were  here. 

That  a  period  of  six  or  eight  centuries,  or  even  more, 
may  have  elapsed  since  some  of  the  mounds  were  built 
will  be  conceded  by  all,  but  when  by  this  evidence  it 
comes  to  prove  that  the  Mound  Builders  ended  their 
work  six  centuries  before  Christ,  or  four  centuries  after, 
it  can  not  be  done;  for  nothing  certain  as  to  their 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


279 


antiquity  can  be  decided  by  the  growth  of  our  American 
forest  trees.  I  think  that  the  most  that  can  be  said  from 
this  evidence  is  that  some  of  the  mounds  were  erected 
longer  ago  than  1492. 

Dr.  Lapham  found  that  in  Wisconsin  trees  increased 
one  foot  in  diameter  in  from  fifty- four  to  130  years,  the 
rapidity  of  growth  depending  upon  the  kind  of  tree. 
And,  as  but  few  of  those  living  were  over  three  or  four 
feet  in  diameter,  he  concluded  that  they  could  not  pos 
sibly  date  from  a  period  earlier  than  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  and  were  probably  much  younger.  Dr.  Hoy, 
of  the  same  State,  in  a  pamphlet,  "Who  Built  the 
Mounds?"  states  that,  of  a  number  of  kinds  of  trees 
planted  in  the  streets  of  Racine  in  1847  and  1848,  white 
elms  measured,  in  1882,  from  six  to  eight  feet  in  circum 
ference  ;  maples,  from  four  to  six  feet ;  willows,  eight 
feet ;  and  poplars,  from  eight  and  one-half  to  nine  feet. 
All  this  goes  to  show  that  the  growth  of  our  forest  trees 
is  so  rapid  that  by  it  it  can  not  be  proved  that  one  of  the 
mounds  was  standing  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  this 
antiquity  will  be  granted  to  some  of  them  by  all. 

The  following  facts  from  Dr.  C.  A.  Peterson's  paper, 
"The  Mound-building  Age  in  America,"  will  show  how 
quickly  a  forest  will  cover  a  mound.  In  Elbert  County, 
Georgia,  at  the  junction  of  the  Tugelo  and  Broad  Rivers, 
there  formerly  existed  a  large  town  of  the  Cherokee, 
Uchee  or  Creek  Indians.  It  was  very  probably  visited 
by  De  Soto  in  1540,  as  several  of  his  chroniclers  describe 
it  in  their  narratives  of  that  ill-starred  expedition.  Ac 
cording  to  these  narratives,  the  house  of  the  chief  was 
perched  upon  a  high  mound  with  the  town  below  at  the 
base.  William  Bartram,  the  botanist,  visited  the  site  in 
1775  and  found  the  mound  and  the  village  grounds  cov 
ered  with  the  cornfield  of  an  English  planter,  the  mound 


280  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

yielding  one  hundred  bushels  of  corn  per  year.  He 
describes  it  as  being,  at  the  time  of  his  visit,  between 
forty  and  fifty  feet  high,  flat  at  the  apex,  and  the  spiral 
path  running  from  base  to  summit  still  visible.  He  also 
mentions  a  single  red  cedar  growing  upon  its  summit. 
The  site  was  visited  in  1848  by  Mr.  George  White, 
author  of  "White's  Statistics  of  Georgia,"  who  found 
the  sides  and  summit  of  the  mound  covered  with  cane 
and  a  number  of  large  trees.  It  was  visited  again  in 
1886  by  an  agent  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  who 
found  it  covered  with  such  trees  as  the  sugarberry, 
walnut,  hickory  and  oak,  a  sugarberry  being  six  feet  in 
circumference,  a  walnut  five  feet,  a  hickory  three  and 
one-half,  and  an  oak,  ten ;  and  this  all  in  1 1 1  years. 

3.  It  has  been  assumed,  in  the  third  place,  that  the 
mounds  are  of  a  very  great  age  because  the  skeletons 
found  in  them  are  always  in  a  badly-decayed  condition. 
It  is  declared  that  skeletons  known  to  have  lain  in  burial- 
places  in  England  and  elsewhere  for  two  thousand  years 
are  in  a  better  state  of  preservation  than  are  many  that 
come  from  the  mounds,  and  it  is  argued  from  this  that 
those  of  the  Mound  Builders  must  be  more  ancient. 

In  answering  this  argument,  I  can  not  do  better  than 
to  quote  from  Dr.  Foster,  himself  an  advocate  of  the 
high  antiquity  of  the  mounds.  "Inferences  drawn  from 
the  condition  of  skeletons  form  no  reliable  guide  as  to 
the  lapse  of  time  in  which  they  have  lain  in  the  earth. 
Their  condition  depends,  to  a  great  extent,  on  the  me 
chanical  texture  of  the  soil,  and  the  presence  or  absence 
of  antiseptic  properties  held  in  chemical  solution  by  the 
filtrating  waters." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  370. 

The  skeletons  of  the  Mound  Builders  are  not  more 
decayed  than  are  many  of  those  that  come  from  known 
Indian  village  sites. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  281 

4.  Still  another  argument  to  prove  the  great  antiquity 
of  the  mounds  is  the  faint  resemblance  of  one  of  those 
in  Wisconsin  to  the  mastodon,  a  beast  which  is  commonly 
supposed  to  be  long  extinct. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  very  improbable  that  the 
Wisconsin  mound  was  ever  intended  to  represent  a  mas 
todon.  Professor  Thomas,  who  surveyed  it  in  1884, 
says :  "Take,  for  example,  the  supposed  elephant  mound 
of  Wisconsin  which  has  played  such  an  important  role 
in  most  of  the  works  relating  to  the  mound  builders  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  but  is  now  generally  conceded  to 
be  the  effigy  of  a  bear,  the  snout,  the  elephantine  feature, 
resulting  from  drifting  sand." — American  Archaeology, 
p.  24. 

And,  in  the  second  place,  if  it  were  intended  to  be 
the  effigy  of  a  mastodon,  it  would  not  necessarily  prove 
the  long  dispersion  of  the  Mound  Builders,  for  it  is  now 
generally  conceded  that  this  beast  was  an  inhabitant  of 
this  continent  only  a  few  centuries  ago.  "That  the 
mammoth  was  exterminated  by  the  arrows  of  the  Indian 
hunters,"  says  Lyell,  "is  the  first  idea  presented  to  the 
mind  of  almost  every  naturalist."  And  Henshaw  states: 
"Mastodon  bones  have  been  exhumed  from  peat  beds  in 
this  country  at  a  depth  which,  so  far  as  is  proved  by  the 
rate  of  deposition,  implies  that  the  animal  may  have 
been  alive  within  five  hundred  years." — Second  Kept. 
Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p.  153. 

5.  Lastly,  it  is  asserted  that  the  mounds  must  be  of 
great   antiquity   because   the   Indians   had   no   traditions 
touching  their  building,  which  they  attributed  to  another 
and  a  preceding  people. 

That  the  Indians  had  few  traditions  touching  me 
building  of  the  mounds,  and  that  they  sometimes  attrib 
uted  them  to  preceding  tribes,  I  concede.  The  latter  can 


282  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

be  explained  as  being  due  to  the  shif tings  of  the  popula 
tion,  one  tribe  moving  into  the  territory  of  another  tribe 
truthfully  denying  the  authorship  of  the  ancient  works; 
while  the  absence  of  traditions,  touching  the  building  of 
the  mounds,  is  accounted  for  as  being  due  to  the  weak 
ness  of  the  primitive  mind  in  retaining,  after  the  lapse 
of  a  few  generations,  even  the  most  signal  events.  It  is 
a  fact  much  wondered  at  that  the  Indians  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  after  a  few  generations,  had  forgotten  all 
about  De  Soto  and  his  expedition,  while  the  tribes  of  the 
lakes  soon  lost  all  recollection  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers.  On 
account  of  this  Foster  says :  "I  would  not  make  these 
traditions  the  basis  of  an  argument  for  the  high  antiquity 
of  these  works ;  for  among  a  people  who  have  no  written 
language  the  lapse  of  a  few  generations  would  obliterate 
all  knowledge  even  of  the  most  signal  events." — Prehis 
toric  Races,  p.  375. 

But  that  the  North  American  Indians  had  no  tradi 
tions  of  mound-building  is  untrue. 

On  the  Cherokees  Haywood  says:  "One  tradition 
which  they  have  amongst  them  says  they  came  from  the 
west  and  exterminated  the  former  inhabitants;  and  then 
says  they  came  from  the  upper  parts  of  the  Ohio,  where 
they  erected  the  mounds  on  Grave  Creek,  and  that  they 
removed  thither  from  the  country  where  Monticello 
(near  Charlottesville,  Virginia)  is  situated." — Nineteenth 
Ann.  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p.  20. 

If  the  Cherokees  built  the  large  burial-mound  on 
Grave  Creek,  which  has  been  described,  they  were  able 
to  erect  any  of  the  earthworks  and  mounds  in  the 
country. 

The  Delawares  confirm  this  tradition  with  one  of 
their  own,  in  which  they  ascribe  the  Ohio  mounds  to 
the  Alligewi,  Talligewi,  Tallegwi  or  Tallike,  whom  com- 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  283 

patent  American  philologists  identify  with  the  Chero- 
kees,  who  call  themselves  Tsalaki.  And  the  Wyandots 
also  ag.ee  with  them.  On  the  tradition  of  the  latter, 
Mooney  says :  "According  to  their  tradition,  as  narrated 
in  1802,  the  ancient  fortifications  in  the  Ohio  Valley  had 
been  erected  in  the  course  of  a  long  war  between  them 
selves  and  the  Cherokee,  which  resulted  finally  in  the 
defeat  of  the  latter." — Ibid,  p.  19. 

On  the  traditions  of  mound-building  among  other 
tribes  we  have  the  following  from  Professor  Thomas : 
"According  to  a  Winnebago  tradition,  mounds  in  certain 
localities  in  Wisconsin  were  built  by  that  tribe,  and 
others  by  the  Sacs  and  Foxes.  There  is  another  Indian 
tradition,  apparently  founded  on  fact,  that  the  Essex 
mounds  in  Clinton  County,  Michigan,  are  the  burying- 
places  of  those  killed  in  a  battle  between  the  Chippewas 
and  Pottawatomies,  which  occurred  net  many  genera 
tions  ago." — Problem  of  the  Ohio  Mounds,  p.  13. 

At  the  junction  of  Straddle  Creek  and  Plumb  River, 
Carroll  County,  Illinois,  is  a  group  of  burial-mounds.  In 
all  of  these  mounds,  except  one,  the  only  remains  of  the 
human  body  to  be  found  were  "cinders  and  a  residuum 
of  black  mould."  In  this  exception,  which  is  situated 
280  yards  from  the  main  group,  the  bodies  were  simply 
interred.  "It  is  alleged,"  says  Nadaillac,  "that  tradition 
ascribes  this  change  in  the  mode  of  burial  to  obedience 
to  the  prophets  of  the  tribe,  who  were  alarmed  by  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  which  occurred  whilst  the  body  of  one 
of  their  chiefs  was  being  burnt." — Prehistoric  America, 
p.  121. 

On  an  effigy  mound,  in  the  form  of  the  human  body, 
in  Wisconsin,  he  says:  "It  is  stated  that  a  more  or  less 
ancient  tradition  alleges  that  this  mound  was  erected  in 
honor  of  a  chief  killed  in  battle." — Ibid,  p.  124. 


284  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Thus,  we  see  that  tribes  of  Indians  not  only  had 
traditions  of  mound-building,  but  also  that  these  tradi 
tions  plainly  identify  them  with  the  Mound  Builders. 

I  pass  now  to  some  of  the  positive  evidences  by 
which  the  recent  close  of  the  mound-building  period  is 
established. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  fact  in  history  that  certain  In 
dian  tribes,  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  Europeans,  were 
building  mounds  which  in  size  and  shape  compare  favor 
ably  with  those  attributed  to  the  "veritable  Mound  Build 
ers."  De  Soto's  chroniclers  declare  that  they  saw  many 
occupied  as  foundations  for  the  buildings  of  the  chiefs 
and  principal  men  of  the  tribes  through  whose  territory 
they  passed  and  many  others  in  process  of  erection. 
After  stating  that  "mound-building  was  beyond  question 
continued,  at  least  to  some  extent,  into  post-European 
times,"  Professor  Thomas  says:  "The  proof  of  the  last 
statement  is  found  in  both  historical  and  monumental 
evidence.  The  chroniclers  of  De  Soto's  strange  and  un 
fortunate  expedition  through  the  Gulf  States  in  1540-2, 
whose  statements  could  not  have  been  warped  by  any 
preconceived  opinions  in  regard  to  the  authorship  of 
these  works,  speak  so  positively  as  to  the  building  and  use 
thereof  by  the  Indians  as  to  leave  no  doubt  that  the 
custom  of  building  and  using  mounds  had  not  been 
abandoned  at  that  date  in  the  sections  through  which  the 
expedition  passed.  They  not  only  make  repeated  allu 
sions  to  them,  but  state  expressly  that  they  were  built 
and  used  by  the  Indians." — American  Archaeology,  p. 
140. 

The  chroniclers  of  this  expedition  were  Biedma,  Gar- 
cilasso  de  la  Vega  and  the  Gentleman  of  Elvas.  With 
them,  on  this  point,  agree  such  early  French  writers  as 
De  Tonti,  St.  Cosme,  De  la  Source,  Joutel,  Cravier,  Peni- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  285 

cault,  La  Petit,  De  la  Harpe  and  Du  Pratz,  who  came  in 
contact  with  the  tribes  of  the  lower  Mississippi  some 
years  afterwards.  The  historical  evidence  of  mound- 
building-  will  be  noticed  more  fully  later  on. 

In  the  second  place,  articles  have  been  found  in  some 
of  the  mounds  which  positively  prove  their  post-Colum 
bian  erection.  On  this  point  Professor  Thomas  writes: 
"From  a  mound  in  Wisconsin  were  obtained  a  few  silver 
crosses,  silver  brooches  and  silver  bracelets,  one  of  the 
last  with  the  word  'Montreal'  stamped  on  it  in  plain 
letters.  These  evidently  pertained  to  an  intrusive  burial. 
In  another  Wisconsin  mound,  which  stands  in  the  midst 
of  a  group  of  effigies,  was  found,  lying  at  the  bottom  on 
the  original  surface  of  the  ground,  near  the  center,  a 
genuine,  regularly-formed  gunflmt.  In  another,  in  Ten 
nessee,  some  six  feet  high  and  which  showed  no  signs 
of  disturbance,  an  old-fashioned,  horn-handled  case- 
knife  was  discovered  near  the  bottom.  Far  down  in 
another  of  large  size  and  also  in  comparatively  modern 
Indian  graves,  at  widely  different  points,  have  been 
found  little  sleigh-bells,  probably  what  were  formerly 
known  as  'hawk-bells,'  made  of  copper,  with  pebble  and 
shell-bead  rattles,  and  all  of  precisely  the  same  pattern 
and  finish.  From  a  group  in  northern  Mississippi,  in  the 
locality  formerly  occupied  by  the  Chickasaws,  were 
obtained  a  silver  plate  with  the  Spanish  coat-of-arms 
stamped  upon  it,  and  the  iron  portions  of  a  saddle.  At 
the  bottom  of  a  North  Carolina  mound  parts  of  an  iron 
blade  and  an  iron  awl  were  discovered  in  the  hands  of 
the  principal  personage  buried  therein;  with  these  were 
engraved  shells  and  polished  celts.  At  the  bottom  of  an 
undisturbed  Pennsylvania  mound,  accompanying  the 
original  interment,  of  which  but  slight  evidence  re 
mained,  was  a  joint  of  large  cane,  wrapped  in  pieces  of 


286  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

thin  and  evenly  wrought  silver  foil,  smoothly  cut  in 
fancy  figures.  In  addition  to  these,  the  assistants  have 
obtained  from  mounds  such  things  as  brass  kettles  with 
iron  bails,  brass  wire,  wooden  ladles,  glass  beads,  etc. 
Some  of  these  things  clearly  pertained  to  intrusive 
burials,  but  a  large  portion  of  them  were  evidently  placed 
in  the  mounds  at  the  time  they  were  constructed  and 
with  the  original  interment,  as  shown  by  their  position 
when  discovered." — Work  in  Mound  Exploration,  p.  9. 

These  articles  indicate  contact  with  European  civili 
zation,  and  as  some  of  them  were  found  at  the  bottom 
of  the  mounds,  or  so  near  the  bottom  as  to  make  it 
impossible  for  them  to  have  been  intrusive  burials,  it  is 
positively  certain  that  the  mounds  in  which  they  were 
found  were  erected  in  post-Columbian  times. 

With  no  well-founded  evidence  of  their  high  antiq 
uity,  and  with  so  much  to  prove  the  recentness  of  some 
of  their  works,  we  are  justified,  contrary  to  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  in  assigning  the  Mound  Builders  to  a  very  late 
period  in  the  history  of  ancient  America. 

THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  MOUND  BUILDERS  WAS  FAR  BELOW 
WHAT  THAT  OF  THE  JAREDITES  AND  NEPHITES  IS  DE 
CLARED  TO  HAVE  BEEN,  AND  WAS  IN  NO  WAY  DIF 
FERENT  FROM,  NOR  SUPERIOR  TO,  THAT  OF  THE  INDIAN 
TRIBES  WHEN  THEY  WERE  FIRST  SEEN  BY  THE  WHITES. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  declares  that  the  ancient  in 
habitants  of  the  United  States  were  races  of  people 
considerably  above  the  American  Indians  in  point  of 
culture.  They  were  monotheists,  and  the  Nephites  prac 
ticed  the  virtues,  observed  the  ordinances  and  entertained 
the  tenets  of  the  Christian  religion.  Their  governments 
were  well-organized  and  had  their  seats  in  Central 
America,  or  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  the  Nephites,  farther 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  287 

south  in  the  United  States  of  Colombia.  They  had  well- 
drilled  armies  that  could  be  assembled  in  an  incredibly 
short  time.  They  built  cities  of  wood  and  cement.  They 
tilled  the  soil.  They  built  ships  and  carried  on  commerce 
with  the  distant  parts  of  their  empires.  They  manu 
factured  tools,  weapons  and  implements  of  iron  and 
steel.  They  had  secret  societies.  And  they  employed 
phonetic  systems  of  writing  by  which  they  recorded  the 
events  in  their  history.  These,  in  brief,  are  the  chief 
features  of  the  civilization  of  those  peoples  who,  the 
Book  of  Mormon  declares,  inhabited  the  United  States 
of  America  in  ancient  times. 

But  this  is  all  an  empty  dream.  The  latest  word  that 
the  field  worker  sends  to  us  is  that  the  status  of  the 
Mound  Builders  was  not  superior  to,  nor  essentially 
different  from,  that  of  the  more-advanced  tribes  of 
North  American  Indians  when  these  were  first  met  by 
the  whites.  As  the  exploration  of  the  mounds  has  con 
tinued,  the  apparent  "chasm"  between  their  builders  and 
the  Indians  has  gradually  decreased  in  width  until  to-day 
no  chasm  remains  and  the  two  people  are  known  to  have 
been  identical.  The  truth  of  this  assertion  is  more  ap 
parent  to  the  field  worker  than  to  the  ordinary  reader,  as 
he  has  before  him  the  actual  works  of  these  peoples 
instead  of  the  sensational  books  written  by  theorists, 
many  of  whom  never  did  any  field  work  at  all.1 

Two  objections  are  to  be  urged  against  the  character 


1  "One  'popular'  book  by  a  superficial  observer  has  a  bad  influence 
and  does  more  harm  than  can  be  remedied  by  much  honest,  conscientious 
endeavor  on  the  part  of  workers  in  the  field.  Those  who  have  endured 
the  rains  of  spring,  the  heat  of  summer,  the  chilly  snows  and  sleet  of 
winter,  living  in  thin  tents  or  barnlike  sheds  alongside  the  tumuli  that 
must  be  studied  inch  by  inch  with  pick  and  shovel,  have  a  right  to  cry 
out  in  honest  indignation  when  the  reports  of  men  who  have  never  thrust 
a  spade  into  the  structures  they  attempt  to  describe  pretend  to  be  con 
clusive  on  this  subject." — "Primitive  Man,"  Preface. 


288  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

of  the  evidence  employed  by  Mormon  writers  to  prove 
their  theory  of  the  high  civilization  of  the  ancient  North 
Americans.  In  the  first  place,  much  of  it  comes  from 
yellow  journalism  and  other  questionable  sources.  They 
are  especially  partial  to  sensational  newspaper  write-ups. 
And,  in  the  second,  much  of  it  is  out  of  date,  being 
derived  from  the  works  written  before  the  more  ex 
tended  and  careful  investigations  had  been  made.  Since 
the  Bureau  of  Ethnology  was  organized  in  1879  more 
exact  and  scientific  methods  of  research  have  been  em 
ployed,  with  the  result  that  many  false  theories  have 
been  exposed  and  exploded.  Let  the  reader  consider 
that  the  works  upon  which  Mormon  writers  chiefly  de 
pend  to  prove  the  high  civilization  of  the  Mound  Build 
ers  were  nearly  all  written  before  that  date.  Baldwin's 
work  was  published  in  1871;  Foster's,  in  1873;  Ban 
croft's,  in  1875;  MacLean's,  in  1879;  while  Short's  ap 
peared  in  1880  and  Donnelly's  in  1882.  On  the  other 
hand,  Powell,  Henshaw,  Carr,  Holmes,  Thomas,  Brinton 
and  others  of  the  opposite  school  have  done  most  of  their 
writing  since  the  more  extended  investigations  began  to 
be  made. 

The  works  of  art  found  in  the  mounds,  when  com 
pared  with  the  works  of  art  of  the  Indian  tribes  who 
inhabited  the  continent  at  the  time  of  its  settlement  by 
Europeans,  are  found  to  be  so  much  like  them  that  it  is 
impossible  to  distinguish  between  the  two.  Says  Nadail- 
lac:  ''For  the  most  part  the  objects  found  in  them,  from 
the  rude  knife  to  the  carved  and  polished  'gorget,'  might 
have  been  taken  from  the  inmost  recesses  of  a  mound 
or  picked  up  on  the  surface  among  the  debris  of  a  recent 
Indian  village,  and  the  most  experienced  archaeologist 
could  not  decide  which  was  their  origin." — Prehistoric 
America,  p.  131. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  289 

The  two  peoples  were  alike  in  so  many  things  and 
different  in  so  few  that  there  can  be  said  to  be  no  just 
line  of  demarkation  between  them.  Both  erected  mounds 
and  inclosures ;  both  chipped  arrowheads  out  of  flint, 
chert  and  chalcedony  and  manufactured  celts,  axes  and 
pestles  out  of  diorite,  hematite  and  other  similar  ma 
terials  ;  both  made  and  used  the  so-called  "Monitor" 
pipe ;  both  were  semi-agricultural ;  both  buried  their  dead 
in  a  sitting  posture  and  surrounded  them  with  bark,  or 
deposited  them  in  stone  graves ;  both  built  circular  hab 
itations  ;  both  employed  mounds  as  bases  for  buildings, 
etc.  As  the  Indians  were  the  only  occupants  of  the 
mound  territory  at  the  coming  of  the  whites,  these 
analogies  amount  almost  to  proof  of  the  identity  of  the 
two  peoples.  The  burden,  therefore,  rests  with  the 
other  side  to  show  why  this  identification  should  not  be 
accepted. 

So  much  alike  are  the  relics  of  the  Mound  Builders 
and  the  Indians  that  the  former  chief  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution,  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  does  not  hesitate  to  pro 
nounce  the  two  peoples  one  and  the  same.  He  says: 
"The  research  of  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  has  put 
this  subject  in  a  proper  light.  First,  the  annals  of  the 
Columbian  epoch  have  been  carefully  studied,  and  it  is 
found  that  some  of  the  mounds  have  been  constructed  in 
historical  time,  while  early  explorers  and  settlers  found 
many  actually  used  by  tribes  of  North  American  In 
dians;  so  we  know  many  of  them  were  builders  of 
mounds.  Again,  hundreds  and  thousands  of  these 
mounds  have  been  carefully  examined,  and  the  works  of 
art  found  therein  have  been  collected  and  assembled  in 
museums.  At  the  same  time,  the  works  of  art  of  the 
Indian  tribes,  as  they  were  produced  before  modification 
by  European  culture,  have  been  assembled  in  the  same 


290  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

museums,  and  the  classes  of  collections  have  been  care 
fully  compared.  All  this  has  been  done  with  the  greatest 
painstaking,  and  the  mound  builders'  arts  and  the  In 
dians'  arts  are  found  to  be  substantially  identical.  No 
fragment  of  evidence  remains  to  support  the  figment  of 
theory  that  there  was  an  ancient  race  of  mound  builders 
superior  in  culture  to  the  North  American  Indians.  .  .  . 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  mound  builders  were  the 
Indian  tribes  discovered  by  white  men." — From  "Prehis 
toric  Man  in  America,"  an  article  in  the  Forum  of  Jan 
uary,  1890.  Quoted  in  "Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian 
Times,"  pp.  38,  39. 

One  of  the  best  books  on  mound  exploration  is 
"Primitive  Man  in  Ohio,"  by  Warren  K.  Moorehead. 
The  author,  in  four  seasons  of  exploration,  part  of  the 
time  under  the  direction  of  the  World's  Columbian  Ex 
position,  excavated  107  mounds,  graves  and  cemeteries. 
On  the  culture  of  the  Mound  Builders  of  Ohio  he  says: 
"Nothing  more  than  the  upper  status  of  savagery  was 
attained  by  any  race  or  tribe  living  within  the  limits  of 
the  present  State  of  Ohio.  All  statements  to  the  con 
trary  are  misrepresentations.  If  we  go  by  field  testi 
mony  alone  (not  to  omit  the  reports  of  early  travelers 
among  North  American  tribes),  we  can  assign  primitive 
man  high  attainments  in  but  few  things,  and  these  indi 
cate  neither  civilization  nor  an  approach  toward  it." — 
Primitive  Man,  pp.  199,  200. 

And  Professor  Thomas,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institu 
tion,  who  has  excavated  as  many  mounds  probably  as 
any  explorer,  says:  "Nothing  trustworthy  has  been  dis 
covered  to  justify  the  theory  that  the  mound  builders  be 
longed  to  a  highly  civilized  race,  or  that  they  were  a 
people  who  had  attained  a  higher  culture  status  than  the 
Indians.  It  is  true  that  works  and  papers  on  American 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  291 

archaeology  are  full  of  statements  to  the  contrary,  which 
are  generally  based  on  the  theory  that  the  mound  build 
ers  belonged  to  a  race  of  much  higher  culture  than  the 
Indians.  Yet,  when  the  facts  on  which  this  opinion  is 
based  are  examined  with  sober,  scientific  care,  the  splen 
did  fabric  which  has  been  built  upon  them  by  that  great 
workman,  imagination,  fades  from  sight." — Work  in 
Mound  Exploration,  pp.  n,  12. 

One  of  the  chief  arguments  relied  upon  to  prove  the 
superior  culture  of  the  Mound  Builders  was  their  ability 
to  build  circular  and  square  intrenchments.  It  is  asserted 
that  many  of  those  found  in  Ohio  and  elsewhere  are  so 
exact  in  dimensions  that  their  builders  must  have  had 
some  knowledge  of  geometrical  principles  in  order  to 
construct  them.  Elder  Stebbins  declares  that  the  fifteen 
hundred  inclosures  in  the  State  of  Ohio  are  of  "perfect 
geometrical  precision,  as  good  as  could  be  made  to-day 
by  the  best  student  of  geometry." — Lectures,  p.  83.  And 
of  course  along  with  this  belief  the  assumption  is 
made  that  the  Indians  not  only  lacked  the  ability,  but 
also  the  disposition,  to  perform  the  labor  necessary  to 
throw  up  these  earthworks.  But  these  assumptions  are 
both  wrong,  for  the  mounds  and  inclosures  are  not  only 
lacking  in  geometrical  exactness,  but  history  shows  that 
the  American  Indians,  before  their  contact  with  Euro 
pean  greed  and  vices,  had  both  the  ability  and  disposi 
tion  to  perform  such  labor. 

Professor  Thomas,  in  the  "Twelfth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,"  p.  645,  refutes 
the  argument  of  the  geometrical  exactness  of  the 
mounds.  He  says:  "One  serious  objection  urged  against 
the  theory  that  the  Indians  were  the  authors  of  the 
ancient  works  is  that  the  great  number  of  them,  the 
magnitude  of  some  of  them,  and  the  art  displayed 


292  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

in  their  construction,  indicate  a  centralized  and  syste 
matic  form  of  government  and  a  skill  foreign  to 
and  entirely  above  the  culture  status  of  the  Indians. 
This  opinion  is  based  largely  upon  the  statements  made 
in  regard  to  these  works  and  their  contents,  which  a 
more  careful  examination  has  shown  in  many  cases  to 
be  erroneous  and  overdrawn.  For  example,  the  estimates 
as  to  size  where  given  without  careful  measurements  are, 
as  a  very  general  rule,  largely  in  excess  of  the  true 
dimensions.  The  statement  so  often  made  that  -many  of 
these  monuments  have  been  constructed  with  such  math 
ematical  accuracy  as  to  indicate  not  only  a  unit  of  meas 
ure,  but  also  the  use  of  instruments,  is  found  upon 
re-examination  to  be  without  any  basis,  unless  the  near 
approach  of  some  three  or  four  circles  and  as  many 
squares  of  Ohio  to  mathematical  correctness  be  sufficient 
to  warrant  this  opinion.  As  a  very  general,  and  in  fact, 
almost  universal,  rule,  the.  figures  are  more  or  less 
irregular  and  indicate  nothing  higher  in  art  than  an 
Indian  could  form  with  his  eye  and  by  pacing.  Circles 
and  squares  are  simple  figures  known  to  all  savage  tribes 
and  easily  formed ;  hence  the  fact  that  a  few,  and  a  very 
few,  approach  mathematical  accuracy  is  not  sufficient  to 
counterbalance  the  amount  of  evidence  on  the  other  side." 

"We  should  have  to  descend  low  in  the  scale  of 
humanity  indeed,"  says  Dellenbaugh,  "to  find  a  tribe 
that  could  not  make  a  cord  long  enough  to  lay  out  any 
circle  yet  discovered  on  this  continent.  There  is  nothing 
difficult  about  it.  The  largest  circle  at  Newark  has  a 
diameter  of  about  a  thousand  feet.  This  would  require 
a  rope  only  five  hundred  feet  long,  which  would  be  noth 
ing  for  any  tribe  on  the  continent  to  make." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  pp.  346,  347. 

That  the  American  Indians  had  both  the  mechanical 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


293 


ability  and  the  disposition  to  build  earthen  mounds  and 
fortifications,  are  facts  of  history.  "To  assert,"  says 
Professor  Carr,  "that  the  Indian  would  not  have  sub 
mitted  to  the  labor  requisite  for  the  construction  of  these 
mounds  is  virtually  to  beg  the  whole  question.  So  far 
is  this  from  being  true  that  there  is  probably  no  fact  in 
American  archaeology  better  authenticated  than  that  the 
red  Indian  has,  within  the  historical  epoch,  voluntarily 
built  both  mounds  and  earthworks." — Smithsonian  Re 
port  for  1891,  p.  534. 

There  is  nothing  in  any  mound  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley  which  would  require  in  men,  skill  or  systematic 
labor,  more  than  could  be  furnished  by  such  tribes  as 
the  Iroquois,  Cherokees  and  Chata  Muskokis.  Mr.  Ge 
rard  Fowke,  who  has  a  wide  reputation  as  an  archaeolo 
gist,  shows  that  a  mound  one  hundred  feet  in  diameter 
at  the  base  and  twenty  feet  high  could  be  thrown  up 
with  the  simple  means  that  the  Mound  Builders  had  at 
hand  by  one  hundred  men  in  forty-two  days.  This  is 
concurred  in  by  Professor  Thomas.1  The  great  Cahokia 
mound,  the  largest  in  the  country,  contained  25,000,000 
cubic  feet  of  earth.  One  thousand  men  with  hand  bar 
rows,  the  vehicles  used  as  shown  by  the  individual  loads 
that  can  be  traced  in  the  mounds,  each  bearing  one-half 
of  a  cubic  foot  of  earth  at  a  load  and  bringing  twenty- 
five  loads  a  day,  could  throw  up  the  mound  in  two  thou 
sand  days.  Now,  such  a  task  would  not  be  arduous,  and 
as  for  men  any  one  of  the  above-mentioned  tribes  could 
have  provided  them.  In  1735  Adair  estimated  that  the 
Cherokees  could  muster  more  than  six  thousand  fighting 
men,  while  the  whole  number  of  individuals  in  the  tribe 
amounted  to  between  sixteen  and  seventeen  thousand 


"American  Archaeology,"  pp.  63,  64, 


294  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

souls.1  And  Mr.  Kirkand,  a  missionary  among  the 
Oneidas,  estimated  in  1783  the  total  number  of  warriors 
in  the  Six  Nations  at  more  than  four  thousand.2  Besides, 
the  Mound  Builders  frequently  made  use  of  natural 
elevations,  changing  and  enlarging  them  to  suit  their 
purpose,  and  worked  intermittently. 

The  Mound  Builders  and  the  American  Indians  built 
the  same  kinds  of  habitations.  At  various  points  in  the 
mound  region  what  archaeologists  call  "hut  rings"  are 
still  to  be  made  out.  These  rings  are  from  fifteen  to 
fifty  feet  in  diameter,  the  inclosed  area  being  depressed. 
They  are  found  in  Tennessee,  Illinois  and  southeastern 
Missouri  and  were  frequently  seen  in  Ohio,  according  to 
Squier  and  Davis,  before  the  plow  had  done  its  work  of 
obliteration.  Excavations  in  the  center  of  these  rings 
usually  bring  to  light  cracked  stones,  ashes,  fragments 
of  pottery  and  animal  bones,  which  mark  the  hearths. 
Nadaillac  gives  this  description  of  the  hut  rings  at 
Sandy  Woods,  Missouri:  "As  at  Greenwood,  circular 
trenches  marked  the  site  of  dwellings.  They  are  about 
two  feet  deep  by  twenty-eight  feet  in  diameter.  The 
presence,  in  some  particular  spots,  of  heaps  of  burnt  clay, 
cinders,  fragments  of  charcoal  and  the  calcined  bones  of 
animals  indicate  the  hearths.  They  were  generally  in  the 
center  of  the  habitation,  and,  as  is  the  custom  among 
numerous  savage  tribes,  the  smoke  escaped  through  a 
hole  made  in  the  roof." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  96. 

The  circles  at  Greenwood,  Tenn.,  referred  to  in  the 
foregoing,  were  made  by  a  people,  according  to  Pro 
fessor  Putnam,  who  were  one  of  the  most  forward  tribes 
in  North  America.  They  tilled  the  soil.-  They  buried 
their  dead  instead  of  burning  them.  They  were  experts 

1  "Nineteenth  Kept.   Bu.   Am.  Ethno.,"  p.   34. 
8  "The  Ten  Tribes,"  p.  97. 


CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED  29$ 

in  the  manufacture  of  pottery  and  ornaments.  And  they 
made  long  journeys  to  obtain  copper  from  Lake  Superior 
and  shells  from  the  Atlantic  Coast.  They  also  built 
mounds  and  fortifications,  which  classes  them  with  the 
Mound  Builders. 

But  it  requires  no  advanced  knowledge  of  aboriginal 
American  architecture  to  discover  that  these  circular 
huts  were  identical  with  the  Algonkin  wigwams  of  post- 
Columbian  times. 

Another  class  of  dwellings,  the  remains  of  which  are 
found  on  the  mounds  of  Arkansas,  Missouri  and  Missis 
sippi,  were  evidently  square.  Their  sites  are  marked  by 
three  layers  of  debris :  the  first  of  common  soil  from  one 
to  two  feet  thick ;  the  second  of  burnt  clay  of  from  four 
inches  to  a  foot  thick,  and  the  third  of  hardened  muck 
or  dark  clay.  In  the  lower  stratum  skeletons  are  usually 
found.  The  middle  layer  is  supposed  to  have  been  the 
plastering  of  the  walls,  which  had  fallen  where  it  is 
found,  as  it  always  occurs  in  lumps  and  with  it  the  evi 
dences  of  cane  lathing.  It  is  thought  that  these  struc 
tures  were  built  by  planting  upright  posts  in  the  ground, 
then  weaving  in, and  out  among  them  laths  of  split  cane, 
and  finally  coating  the  whole  with  clay.  These  were 
without  doubt  habitations  of  the  Mound  Builders,  and 
yet  Du  Pratz  saw  just  such  cabins  erected  by  the  Indian 
tribes  of  that  section  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.1 

The  Book  of  Mormon  declares  that  the  ancient  in 
habitants  of  the  United  States  erected  cities,  temples, 
synagogues  and  sanctuaries,  using  for  the  purpose  wood 
and  cement.  "And  there  being  but  little  timber  upon  the 
face  of  the  land,  nevertheless  the  people  who  went  forth 


1  "American  Archaeology,"  pp.   135-137' 


296  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

became  exceeding  expert  in  the  working-  of  cement; 
therefore  they  did  build  houses  of  cement,  in  the  which 
they  did  dwell." — Helaman  2:1. 

But  the  Mound  Builders  used  neither  cut  stone  nor 
mortar  in  the  construction  of  their  fortifications  and 
habitations.  Frequently  rough  stones  were  used,  but 
these  were  simply  thrown  together  or  laid  up  in  rude 
piles  and  were  not  held  in  place  by  cement  of  any  kind. 
As  an  example  of  this,  we  have  the  fortress  at  Bourne- 
ville,  Ohio,  whose  walls,  which  are  two  miles  and  a  quar 
ter  in  length,  were  made  of  rough  stones.  The  walls  of 
Fort  Hill,  of  the  same  State,  were  likewise  built  of  stones 
mingled  with  earth.  And  mounds  made  of  rough  stones 
piled  together  are  sometimes  found  in  the  same  section. 

"The  Mound  Builders,"  says  Nadaillac,  "used  the 
materials  at  hand.  When  stones  were  abundant,  they 
piled  them  up  with  earth  to  make  their  walls,  but  these 
stones  are  never  quarried  or  dressed,  nor  are  they  ever 
cemented  with  any  mortar;  several  instances  may  be 
quoted,  notably  a  stone  fort  on  the  Duck  River,  near 
Manchester,  Tennessee,  in  which  the  walls  are  of  un- 
worked  stones,  detached  from  neighboring  rocks." — Pre 
historic  America,  p.  89. 

And  Bancroft  states:  "There  is  no  instance  of  walls 
built  of  stone  that  has  been  hewn  or  otherwise  artificially 
prepared,  of  the  use  of  mortar,  of  even  rough  stones  laid 
with  regularity,  of  adobes  or  earth  otherwise  prepared, 
or  of  material  brought  from  any  great  distance." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  753. 

In  respect  to  the  building  materials  employed,  the 
Mound  Builders  were  even  inferior  to  our  historic  Indian 
tribes  of  the  Southwest,  who  have  made  use  of  cut  stone 
and  mortar  from  time  immemorial. 

The  Mound  Builders,  like  the  Indians,  had  not  pro- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  297 

gressed  beyond  the  use  of  stone  as  the  material  out  of 
which  they  manufactured  their  arrowheads,  knives  and 
axes.  Manufactured  iron  was  unknown  amongst  them, 
although  iron  ore  and  meteoric  iron  were  sometimes 
made  into  implements  and  ornaments.  This,  of  course,  is 
directly  at  variance  with  the  teachings  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  according  to  which  the  Mound  Builders  "did 
make  gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and  brass,  and  all  man 
ner  of  metals." 

Foster  states :  "No  implement  of  iron  has  been  found 
in  connection  with  the  ancient  civilizations  of  America. 
The  mound  builders,  as  we  have  seen,  wrought  as  a 
stone,  the  rich  specular  ores  of  Missouri,  into  various 
instruments,  which  they  ground  and  polished  with  elabo 
rate  care,  little  conscious  that  the  same  material,  sub 
jected  to  a  high  heat,  could  be  cast  into  any  required 
form,  and  converted  into  much  more  efficient  weapons." 
— Prehistoric  Races,  p.  333. 

And  Professor  Thomas  says :  "The  mound  builders 
had  neither  iron  nor  steel  of  which  to  form  spades  and 
shovels,  nor  had  they  beasts  of  burden  to  assist  in  the 
transportation  of  material." — American  Archaeology,  p. 
61. 

A  number  of  Mormon  works  contain  descriptions  of 
iron  implements  taken  from  the  mounds  which  are  held 
up  as  proof  that  the  Mound  Builders  were  an  iron- work 
ing  people.1  But,  as  has  heretofore  been  shown,  these 
implements  do  not  prove  that  the  Mound  Builders  were 
iron  workers,  but  that  some  of  the  mounds  have  been 
erected  within  post-Columbian  times,  as  they  all  bear  the 
marks  of  European  workmanship. 

1  "Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,"  pp.  276,  277.  "Divinity  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  Proven  by  Archaeology,"  pp.  112,  113.  "Parsons'  Text-book," 
pp.  7,  8.  "Book  of  Mormon  Verified,"  p.  14.  "Ruins  Revisited,"  p.  208. 


298  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

If  the  reader  will  consult  Moorehead's  "Primitive 
Man  in  Ohio,"  Thomas'  "American  Archaeology,"  and 
similar  works,  he  will  find  how  identical  the  implements 
from  the  mounds  are  with  the  implements  manufactured 
by  the  Indians,  and  how  dissimilar  they  are  to  the  imple 
ments  of  a  people  in  the  culture  grade  of  the  Jaredites 
and  Nephites.  The  mound  relics  are  flint  knives,  spear 
heads  and  arrowheads;  shell  and  slate  gorgets;  pots; 
bone  awls,  needles  and  scrapers;  stone  celts  and  axes; 
copper  plates,  pounded  and  rolled  out  while  the  metal 
was  cold ;  copper,  spool-shaped  ornaments ;  perforated 
animal  teeth,  etc.  In  a  single  cache  Moorehead  found 
7,232  large  flint  discs,  the  size  of  the  human  hand,  while 
from  another  mound  he  took  a  head-dress  made  of  wood 
to  represent  the  antlers  of  an  elk,  the  whole  being  neatly 
covered  with  sheet  copper  which  had  been  rolled  over  the 
wood.1  These  finds  are  the  most  remarkable  recorded  in 
his  book,  yet  neither  the  discs  nor  the  head-dress  were 
above  the  ability  of  the  American  Indian. 

The  aboriginal  cemetery  at  Madisonville,  Ohio,  is  one 
of  the  largest  of  its  kind  in  the  United  States.  It  occu 
pies  a  plateau,  facing  the  Little  Miami,  and  is  one-half 
mile  west  of  Batavia  Junction  on  the  P.  C.  C.  &  St.  L. 
Railroad.  This  cemetery  was  accidentally  discovered  in 
March,  1879,  by  a  laborer  in  the  employ  of  Dr.  C.  L. 
Metz.  It  was  rich  in  Mound  Builder  relics,  and  from  it 
have  been  taken  fourteen  hundred  crania.  With  the 
skeletons  have  been  found  such  articles  as  flint  and  stone 
implements ;  stone  pipes ;  pots ;  charred  matting ;  tools 
and  implements  of  bone,  shell  and  copper;  chisels  of  horn 
and  flint ;  perforated  stones,  and  unio  shells.  With  these 
were  intermingled  carbonized  maize,  cracked  bowlders 

1  "Primitive  Man,"  pp.    189,   194. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  29$ 

and  the  bones  of  the  deer,  elk,  raccoon,  opossum,  mink, 
woodchuck,  beaver  and  turkey,  which  all  go  to  show  that 
the  Mound  Builders  buried  there  were  only  semi-agri 
cultural,  depending  in  a  great  measure  upon  the  chase 
for  their  food  supply.1 

From  a  mound  in  Tennessee,  220  feet  long  by  184 
feet  broad  and  14  feet  high,  ninety  skeletons  were  taken, 
and  with  them  such  articles  as  pots ;  stone  pipes,  chisels, 
celts  and  axes ;  discoidal  stones ;  flint  arrowheads  and 
nodules ;  engraved  shells ;  gorgets ;  shell  masks  and  pins ; 
beads ;  red  paint ;  bear  teeth,  etc.2  Nothing  that  would 
indicate  a  civilization  like  that  attributed  to  the  Jaredites 
and  Nephites. 

No  relics  essentially  different  from  these,  nor  requir 
ing  more  skill  in  their  manufacture,  have  ever  been 
found  in  the  mound  region,  and  this  is  leading  archaeolo 
gists  to  believe  that  the  Mound  Builders  were  only  tribes 
of  American  Indians  after  all. 

In  their  ceramic  arts  the  Mound  Builders  were  not  in 
advance  of  such  Indian  tribes  as  the  Iroquois,  Natchez 
and  Delawares.  Both  made  earthen  vessels,  and  the  work 
of  each,  in  many  instances,  is  of  high  order,  even  supe 
rior  to  the  pottery  of  Europe  in  the  same  period  of 
development.  The  pottery  of  the  Mound  Builders  was 
manufactured  out  of  a  dark  gray  or  blue  clay,  which  was 
given  more  consistency  by  being  mixed  with  sand,  frag 
ments  of  shells,  bits  of  quartz,  mica  and  feldspar,  or  par 
ticles  of  the  carbonate  of  lime.  Squier  and  Davis  assert 
that  real  ovens  existed  in  Ohio  in  which  pottery  was 
baked.  Vessels  were  formed  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Some 
were  moulded  in  baskets,  some  in  nets  of  cord,  others  in 
holes  in  the  ground,  and  still  others  were  made  by  coiling 

1  "Primitive   Man,"   pp.   49-58. 

2  "American  Archaeology,"  p.  84. 


300  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

round  and  round,  from  bottom  to  top,  long,  slender  ropes 
of  clay,  after  which  the  whole  was  carefully  smoothed 
with  the  hand,  a  shell  or  some  other  instrument.  Ameri 
can  pottery  is  soft,  unglazed  ware,  is  moulded  in  various 
shapes,  and  is  covered  with  fantastic  and  highly-colored 
designs. 

But  no  line  can  be  drawn  between  the  Mound  Build 
ers  and  the  American  Indians  here.  They  used  the  same 
materials,  manufactured  their  vessels  in  the  same  ways, 
and  covered  them  with  the  same  fantastic  designs. 
Among  the  articles  taken  from  the  mounds  are  large 
pots,  some  holding  several  quarts,  earthen  jars  and  long- 
necked  bottles.  But  just  such  vessels  were  made  by  his 
toric  Indian  tribes  before  they  lost  the  art  by  the  intro 
duction  of  European  wares.  Du  Pratz  states  that  the 
Natchez  made  "pots  of  an  extraordinary  size,  cruses  with 
a  medium-sized  opening,  jars,  bottles  with  long  necks 
holding  two  pints,  and  pots  or  cruses  for  holding  bear's 
oil."  * 

Among  the  articles  taken  from  the  Ohio  mounds  by 
Squier  and  Davis  was  a  vase  with  a  bird's  head  engraved 
upon  it.  It  appears  in  many  works  on  American  archae 
ology  as  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  ceramic  art  of 
the  Mound  Builders  over  that  of  the  Indians.  But  Dr. 
Rau,  a  practical  archaeologist,  after  examining  the  vase, 
declared  that  it  was  in  no  way  superior  to  clay  pottery 
manufactured  at  Cahokia  Creek,  Illinois,  by  recent  In 
dian  tribes,  and  Davis  himself,  after  examining  the  In 
dian  pottery  from  that  locality,  also  expressed  the  same 
opinion.2 

On  the  equality  of  the  Indian  ceramic  art  to  that  of 
the  Mound  Builders,  Nadaillac  says:  "The  Iroquois, 


1  "American  Archaeology,"  p.   96. 

2  "Ohio   Mounds,"   p.   23. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


301 


Natchez,  Delawares  and  Indians  of  Florida  and  Louisi 
ana  made  vases,  the  ornamentation  and  delicacy  of  which 
were  not  in  any  way  inferior  to  the  pottery  of  the  Mound 
Builders,  and  the  curious  pipes" — monitor — "of  which 
we  have  spoken,  are  met  with  among  the  Indians  of  the 
present  day." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  193. 

And  Thomas  says :  "The  statement  so  often  made  that 
the  mound  pottery,  especially  that  of  Ohio,  far  excels 
that  of  the  Indians,  is  not  justified  by  the  facts." — Ohio 
Mounds,  p.  24. 

The  textile  fabrics  of  the  Mound  Builders,  also,  were 
no  better  than  those  woven  by  the  hands  of  the  American 
Indians.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  the  Indian  dressed 
entirely  in  skins  or  other  natural  products  and  that  he  did 
not  manufacture  cloth  of  any  kind,  and,  as  the  Mound 
Builders  manufactured  cloth  of  hemp,  it  is  assumed  that 
there  was  a  wide  gulf  between  the  two.  But  the  assump 
tion  that  the  Indian  dressed  entirely  in  skins  is  false,  for 
he,  too,  made  cloth  of  hemp,  and  also  of  cotton  and  bird 
feathers.  "Weaving  was  not  confined  to  the  Pueblo  and 
Mexican  country  when  the  whites  first  came  to  the  con 
tinent,  but  was  in  vogue  amongst  many  different  tribes, 
who  used  various  substances  in  the  manufacture  of  rugs 
and  blankets.  Cotton  amongst  Southern  and  Southwest 
ern  tribes  was  a  favorite  material,  and  in  other  places 
hemp  and  the  hair  of  animals  and  birds'  feathers  were 
used." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  128. 

W.  H.  Holmes,  in  writing  on  the  impressions  made 
on  mound  pottery  by  the  cloth  of  the  Mound  Builders, 
says :  "Attention  should  be  called  to  the  fact  that  the 
work  described,  though  varied  and  ingenious,  exhibits  no 
characters  in  execution  or  design  not  wholly  consonant 
with  the  art  of  a  stone-age  people.  There  is  nothing 
superior  to  or  specifically  different  from  the  work  of  our 


302  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

modern  Indians." — Textile  Fabrics  of  the  United  States 
Derived  from  Impressions  on  Pottery  in  Third  Annual 
Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  p.  425. 
And  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  in  the  introduction  to  the 
Third  Report,  declares  that  this  discovery  is  "an  impor 
tant  deduction,"  and  that  it  "eliminates  one  more  source 
of  error  cherished  by  lovers  of  the  mysterious  to  estab 
lish  and  exalt  a  supposed  race  of  'Mound  Builders/  " 

In  their  burial  customs  the  Mound  Builders  and  the 
American  Indians  were  identical.  In  some  localities  they 
both  removed  the  flesh  from  the  bones  before  their  final 
interment.  Both  often  buried  beneath  dwellings  Both 
frequently  buried  the  corpse  in  a  sitting  posture.  Fire 
was  employed  by  both  in  their  burial  ceremonies.  The 
Mound  Builders,  Shawnees  and  Kickapoos  buried  in 
stone  graves.  Both  placed  bark  beneath  and  over  their 
dead.  The  Southern  Mound  Builders  often  wrapped  the 
corpse  in  cane  matting,  and,  according  to  Lawson,  certain 
Carolina  Indian  tribes  did  the  same.  And  each  buried 
with  the  deceased  the  ornaments  and  utensils  that  he 
had  made  use  of  during  life.  In  considering  this  point, 
in  his  "Problem  of  the  Ohio  Mounds,"  Professor  Thomas 
remarks:  "The  mortuary  customs  of  the  mound  build 
ers,  as  gleaned  from  an  examination  of  their  burial- 
mounds,  ancient  cemeteries  and  other  depositories  of  their 
dead,  present  so  many  striking  resemblances  to  those  of 
the  Indians  when  first  encountered  by  the  whites  as  to 
leave  little  room  for  doubt  regarding  their  identity.  Nor 
is  this  similarity  limited  to  the  customs  in  the  broad  and 
general  sense,  but  it  is  carried  down  to  the  more  minute 
and  striking  peculiarities." — Ohio  Mounds,  pp.  18,  19. 

Still  another  difference  that  has  been  assumed  be 
tween  the  Mound  Builders  and  the  Indians  is  that  the 
former  were  a  sedentary  people,  while  the  latter  are  more 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


303 


of  the  hunter  type.  The  common  conception  of  the  for 
mer  is  that  of  a  people  living  in  permanent  communities, 
building  large  and  substantial  structures  and  depending 
for  their  livelihood  on  the  cultivation  of  the  soil;  the 
common  conception  of  the  latter  is  that  of  a  people  of  a 
more  or  less  nomadic  character,  depending  for  their  live 
lihood  chiefly  upon  the  chase.  But  both  of  these  concep 
tions  are  overdrawn,  and  the  more  their  works  are 
studied  the  stronger  becomes  the  evidence  that  the 
Mound  Builders  were  only  semi-agricultural  and  that  the 
American  Indians  originally  were  only  semi-hunter.1 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  those  who  seek  to  maintain 
the  theory  of  the  lost  race  to  judge  the  Indian  of  three 
hundred  years  ago  by  the  product  of  European  greed 
and  vice.  And  this  is  an  unfair  judgment.  The  Indian 
of  to-day  is  almost  as  different  from  his  ancestors  of  the 
sixteenth  century  as  our  Southern  negro  is  from  the  wild 
tribes  of  Africa.  Contact  with  a  foreign  civilization  and 
foreign  vices  has  wrought  this  transformation. 

When  the  whites  first  appeared  on  the  scene  the 
American  tribes  were  manufacturing  their  pottery  out  of 
clay,  their  cloth  out  of  cotton,  hemp  and  bird  feathers, 
and  their  tools  out  of  stone,  bone  and  other  natural 
materials.  The  copper  kettle  soon  took  the  place  of  the 
pot  of  clay  and  the  art  of  manufacturing  pottery  in  all 
parts  declined,  while  in  some  it  was  quite  forgotten.  The 
brilliantly-colored  cloths  from  the  looms  of  Europe  also 
began  to  supplant  those  made  of  hemp  and  cotton  and  by 
primitive  processes.  And  the  gun  and  knife  of  steel  soon 
drove  out  of  favor  the  bow  and  the  knife  of  flint  or  bone. 

1  This  is  ably  set  forth  in  the  excellent  paper,  "Mounds  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  Valley,"  by  Mr.  Lucien  Carr,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  published  in 
the  "Memoirs  of  the  Kentucky  Geological  Survey,"  Vol.  II.,  1883,  and 
republished  in  the  Smithsonian  Report  for  1891. 


304  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

The  Indian  found  that  a  copper  kettle  and  a  piece  of 
European  cloth  could  be  purchased  for  a  bundle  of 
beaver  skins,  and,  as  these  were  more  serviceable  than 
the  articles  of  his  own  manufacture,  he  gave  up,  in  a 
great  measure,  the  practice  of  the  arts  of  pot-making 
and  weaving.  But,  above  all,  the  white  man's  firewater 
wrought  a  most  disastrous  change,  and  the  free  and 
liberty-loving  son  of  the  forest  became  a  servile  slave  to 
his  appetite,  and,  as  a  consequence,  manhood,  independ 
ence  and  land  have  all  gone  to  satisfy  it. 

But  Mr.  Lucien  Carr,  in  his  "Mounds  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,"  has  proved  that  there  is  a  wide  difference 
between  the  Indian  as  he  is  and  as  he  was.  By  the 
earlier  works  of  history,  description  and  travel,  written 
by  white  men,  he  has  shown  conclusively  that,  at  the  time 
of  the  settlement  of  America,  many  of  the  tribes  were 
sedentary  and  possessed  a  social  standing  equal  to  that 
of  the  Mound  Builders.  Others  have  successfully  per 
formed  the  same  task,  until,  to-day,  we  have  a  mass  of 
historical  testimony  on  this  point  that  is  simply  irrefu 
table. 

That  the  Mound  Builders  depended  in  part  for  food 
upon  the  chase  is  made  evident  by  the  implements  of  the 
chase  and  the  wild-animal  bones  found  in  the  mounds 
and  cemeteries.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  come  to 
consider  the  manner  of  life  of  the  Indian  tribes,  we  find 
plenty  of  evidence  to  show  that  they  were  by  no  means 
the  hunter  race  that  they  are  said  to  have  been.  Colonel 
Force,  in  speaking  of  the  agricultural  habit  of  the  his 
toric  tribes  east  of  the  Mississippi,  says:  "All  the  tribes 
east  of  the  Mississippi  were  more  or  less  agricultural. 
They  all  raised  corn,  beans,  squashes  and  melons." — 
Some  Considerations  on  the  Mounds,  p.  70.  And  Brinton 
states  that  the  Algonkins,  according  to  the,  early  writers, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


305 


cultivated  "large  fields  of  maize,  squash  and  tobacco;" 
that  the  Cherokees,  "when  they  were  upon  the  Kanawha 
and  Ohio,  had  large  fields  under  cultivation;"  and  that, 
according  to  De  Soto's  historians,  the  Chata  Muskokis 
had  "extensive  fields  of  maize,  beans,  squashes  and 
tobacco."  Nothing  mere  can  be  said  for  the  agricultural 
pursuits  of  the  Mound  Builders,  and  when  we  come  to 
consider  that  they  raised  identically  the  same  kinds  of 
grain  and  vegetables,  we  must  conclude  that  they  were 
one  and  the  same  people. 

The  theory  that  the  American  Indians  have  always 
been  a  nomadic  or  roving  race,  too  falls  to  the  ground 
before  a  painstaking  investigation.  "History  also  bears 
us  out,"  says  Thomas,  "in  the  assertion  that  at  the  time 
of  the  discovery  nine-tenths  of  the  tribes  in  the  mound 
district  had  fixed  seats  and  local  habitations,  depending 
to  a  great  extent  for  sustenance  upon  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil." — Ohio  Mounds,  p.  9.  This  can  be  said  of  the 
Hurons,  Iroquois,  Cherokees,  Lenapes,  Creeks,  Mandans 
and  many  other  tribes. 

What  has  been  presented  in  this  section  of  the  present 
chapter  will  certainly  convince  the  reader  that  the  Mound 
Builders  not  only  possessed  a  degree  of  culture  no  higher 
than  that  of  many  of  the  Indian  tribes  at  the  time  of  the 
Discovery,  but  also  that  in  its  main  features  it  was  iden 
tical  with  the  culture  of  these  Indian  tribes.  And  this 
explodes  the  theory  of  the  Mormons  that  they  were  civ 
ilized  and  enlightened  Jaredites  and  Nephites. 

Moorehead,  in  the  following  extract  from  his  "Primi 
tive  Man  in  Ohio,"  pp.  200,  201,  sums  up  all  that  the 
Mound  Builder  of  Ohio  was  capable  of.  "First,  he 
excelled  in  building  earthen  fortifications  and  in  the 
interment  of  his  dead;  second,  he  made  surprisingly  long 
journeys  for  mica,  copper,  lead,  shells  and  other  foreign 


306  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

substances  to  be  used  as  tools  and  ornaments;  third,  he 
was  an  adept  in  the  chase  and  in  war ;  fourth,  he  chipped 
flint  and  made  carvings  on  bone,  stone  and  slate  exceed 
ingly  well,  when  we  consider  the  primitive  tools  he  em 
ployed;  fifth,  a  few  of  the  more  skillful  men  of  his  tribe 
made  fairly  good  representations  of  animals,  birds  and 
human  figures  in  stone.  This  sums  up,  in  brief,  all  that 
he  seemed  capable  of,  which  we  in  our  day  can  consider 
remarkable.  On  the  other  hand,  he  failed  to  grasp  the 
idea  of  communication  by  written  characters,  the  use  of 
metal  (except  in  the  cold  state),  the  cutting  of  stone  or 
the  making  of  brick  for  building  purposes,  and  the  con 
struction  of  permanent  homes.  Ideas  of  transportation, 
other  than  upon  his  own  back,  or  in  frail  canoes,  or  the 
use  of  coal,  which  was  so  abundant  about  him,  and  which 
he  frequently  made  into  pendants  and  ornaments,  and  a 
thousand  other  things  which  civilized  beings  enjoy,  were 
utterly  beyond  his  comprehension.  Instead  of  living 
peacefully  .in  villages  and  improving  a  country  un- 
equaled  in  natural  resources,  of  which  he  was  the  sole 
possessor,  he  spent  his  time  in  petty  warfare,  or  in  sav 
age  worship,  and  in  the  observance  of  the  grossest  super 
stitions.  He  possessed  no  knowledge  of  surgery  or  the 
setting  of  bones,  unless  we  accept  as  evidence  two  neatly 
knitted  bones  found  at  Fosters',  which  by  some  extra 
effort  he  may  have  accomplished.  But,  while  admitting 
these  two  specimens  to  be  actually  and  carefully  set  with 
splints,  we  have  scores  of  femora,  humeri  and  other 
bones  from  Fort  Ancient  and  Oregonia  which  are  worn 
flat  against  unnatural  sockets,  formed  after  the  bones 
had  been  displaced.  We  have  broken  fibulae  and  tibiae 
which  had  never  been  reset.  They  were  bent  like  a  bow, 
and  nature  alone  had  aided  them  in  coming  together." 
Reader,  does  this  look  very  much  as  if  the  Mound 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  30? 

Builders  were  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites,  or  that  there 
was  in  ancient  times  in  the  United  States  "a  wonderful 
civilization"  which  "had  its  base  and  origin  in  Central 
America  and  Mexico"  ?  Does  it  not  look  as  if  the  people 
who  built  the  mounds  were,  after  all,  only  red  Indians 
and  not  civilized  Cushites  from  Babel  or  Jews  from 
Jerusalem?  The  more  the  remains  of  the  Mound  Build 
ers  are  studied,  the  farther  do  archaeologists  get  away 
from  the  old  notion  that  they  represent  a  civilization  that 
is  vanished  and  a  race  that  is  extinct.1 


1  The  earthworks  differ  less  in  kind  than  in  degree  from  other  remains 
respecting  which  history  has  not  been  entirely  silent. — Haven. 

There  is  nothing  indeed  in  the  magnitude  and  structure  of  our 
western  mounds  which  a  semi-hunter  and  semi-agricultural  population,  like 
that  which  may  be  ascribed  to  the  ancestors  or  Indian  predecessors  of 
the  existing  race,  could  not  have  executed. — Schoolcraft. 

No  doubt  that  they  were  erected  by  the  forefathers  of  the  present 
Indians. — Cass. 

All  these  works — and  I  am  inclined  to  assert  the  same  of  the  whole 
of  those  in  the  Atlantic  States  and  the  majority  in  the  Mississippi  Valley 
— were  the  production,  not  of  some  mythical  tribe  of  high  civilization  in 
remote  antiquity,  but  of  the  identical  nations  found  by  the  whites  residing 
in  these  regions. — Brinton. 

Nothing  in  them  which  may  not  have  been  performed  by  a  savage 
people. — Gallatin. 

The  old  idea  that  the  mound  builders  were  peoples  distinct  from  and 
other  than  the  Indians  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  and  their 
progenitors,  appears  unfounded  in  fact  and  fanciful. — C.  C.  Jones. 

Mound-builders  were  tribes  of  American  Indians  of  the  same  race 
with  the  tribes  now  living. — Force. 

The  progress  of  discovery  seems  constantly  to  diminish  the  dis 
tinction  between  the  ancient  and  modern  races;  and  it  may  not  be  very 
wide  ot  the  truth  to  assert  that  they  were  the  same  people. — Lapham. 

There  is  no  more  occasion  for  assuming  a  mysterious  race  of 
"Mound  Builders"  in  America  than  for  assuming  a  mysterious  race  of 
"Castle  Builders"  in  England. — Fiske. 

In  view  of  these  results,  and  of  the  additional  fact  that  these  same 
Indians  are  the  only  people,  except  the  whites,  who,  so  far  as  we  know, 
have  ever  held  the  region  over  which  these  works  are  scattered,  it  is  be 
lieved  that  we  are  fully  justified  in  claiming  that  the  mounds  and  in- 
closures  of  Ohio,  like  those  in  New  York  and  the  Gulf  States,  were  the 
work  of  the  red  Indians  of  historic  times,  or  of  their  immediate  an 
cestors. — Carr. 

For  a  long  time  these  aboriginal  monuments  were  esteemed  sufficient 
evidence  to  prove  that  the  country  had  been  inhabited  by  a  peculiar  race, 


308  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

THE  MOUND  BUILDERS  WERE  NEITHER  JAREDITES   NOR 
NEPHITES,  BUT  "LAMANITES." 

This  chapter  would  not  be  complete  if  I  did  not  bring 
before  the  reader  more  of  the  historical  and  traditional 
evidences  by  which  the  American  Indians  and  the  Mound 
Builders  are  identified  as  one  people. 

I  begin  with  the  historical  evidences  of  mound-build 
ing  in  that  region  which,  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery, 

to  which  the  name  of  "Mound-Builders"  was  given.  We  now  know  that 
these  works  were  constructed  by  the  immediate  ancestors  of  our  American 
Indians,  and  that,  indeed,  in  the  more  southern  parts  of  the  Mississippi 
.valley,  as,  for  instance,  in  northern  Mississippi,  the  people  had  not  quite 
abandoned  the  mound-building  habit  when  they  came  in  contact  with  the 
whites. — Shaler. 

For  a  long  time  it  was  believed  by  a  great  many  persons,  scientific 
and  otherwise,  that  these  piles  of  earth,  often  called  pyramids  quite  er 
roneously,  could  not  have  been  made  by  ordinary  Amerinds,  but  as  the 
study  of  the  native  American  proceeded  and  the  data  of  what  he  did  and 
does  actually  do  began  to  be  recorded,  it  was  perfectly  plain  that  it  was 
not  at  all  necessary  to  look  beyond  the  "Indian"  for  the  origin  of  the 
mounds — that  is,  beyond  the  "Indian"  as  he  was  known  in  the  region 
where  the  mounds  occur.  It  was  found  that  he  had  erected  mounds  after 
the  arrival  of  the  whites,  and  if  he  built  one  or  several  he  might  have 
built  all. — Dellenbaugh. 

Nothing  yet  discovered  proves  for  any  of  the  Mound-Builders  a 
higher  intellectual  capacity  than  is,  or  was,  possessed  by  more  than  one 
well-known  tribe  of  American  Indians. — Fowke. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  are  we  to  believe  was  the  character  of  the 
race  to  which  for  the  purpose  of  clearness  we  have  for  the  time  being 
applied  the  term  "Mound-Builders"?  The  answer  must  be,  they  were  no 
more  nor  less  than  the  immediate  predecessors  in  blood  and  culture  of 
the  Indians  described  by  De  Soto's  chronicler  and  other  early  explorers, 
the  Indians  who  inhabited  the  region  of  the  mounds  at  the  time  of  their 
discovery  by  civilized  men. — Nadaillac. 

The  researches  of  Thomas  and  others  have  shown  that  the  artificial 
mounds  and  other  earthworks  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  are  in  no  way 
different  from  earth-structures  sometimes  seen  in  process  of  erection  by 
early  explorers,  and  contain  no  artifact  types  distinct  from  those  found  in 
use  among  the  Indians  (except  beads  of  Venetian  glass,  hawk  bells  of  al 
loyed  metal,  and  other  objects  of  European  origin  found  in  a  few  of  the 
tumuli);  accordingly  it  has  been  made  clear  that  these  structures  are  not  the 
work  of  ancient  peoples  of  high  culture  as  once  supposed,  but  of  Indians 
corresponding  in  culture  and  habit  to  those  found  in  the  region  by  the 
settlers. — International  Year  Book,  1898. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


309 


was  mainly  inhabited  by  tribes  of  the  Chata  Muskoki 
family,  and  which  comprises  the  present  States  of  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana. 

The  first  white  men  to  visit  this  section  of  the  New 
World  were  De  Soto  and  his  army  of  six  hundred  choice 
men,  who,  in  their  search  for  gold,  crossed  it  in  the  years 
1540  and  1541.  This  expedition  had  with  it  a  number  of 
chroniclers  or  historians  who  have  left  us  accounts  of  its 
trials  and  privations,  the  country  through  which  it  passed 
and  the  character  of  the  tribes  inhabiting  it.  Of  the 
chroniclers  of  this  expedition  there  are  three  whose 
works  have  come  down  to  us,  Biedma,  Garcilasso  de  la 
Vega  and  the  Gentleman  of  Elvas.  The  accounts  of 
mound-building  among  the  tribes  of  the  section  through 
which  this  expedition  passed  as  given  by  these  writers 
are  as  follows : 

"The  caciques  of  this  country  make  a  custom  of  rais 
ing  near  their  dwellings  very  high  hills,  on  which  they 
sometimes  build  their  houses." — Biedma,  Hist.  Coll.  La., 
Vol.  II.,  p.  105. 

"The  town  and  the  house  of  the  Cacique  Ossachile 
are  like  those  of  the  other  caciques  in  Florida.  .  .  .  The 
Indians  try  to  place  their  villages  on  elevated  sites ;  but 
inasmuch  as  in  Florida  there  are  not  many  sites  of  this 
kind  where  they  can  conveniently  build,  they  erect  eleva 
tions  themselves  in  the  following  manner :  They  select 
the  spot  and  carry  there  a  quantity  of  earth  which  they 
form  into  a  kind  of  platform  two  or  three  pikes  in 
height,  the  summit  of  which  is  large  enough  to  give 
room  for  twelve,  fifteen  or  twenty  houses,  to  lodge  the 
cacique  and  his  attendants.  At  the  foot  of  this  elevation 
they  mark  out  a  square  place  according  to  the  size  of  the 
village,  around  which  the  leading  men  have  their  houses. 


310  CUMCRAH  REVISITED 

...  To  ascend  the  elevation  they  have  a  straight  passage 
way  from  bottom  to  top,  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  wide. 
Here  steps  are  made  by  massive  beams,  and  others  are 
planted  firmly  in  the  ground  to  serve  as  walls.  On  all 
other  sides  of  the  platform  the  sides  are  cut  steep." — 
Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  Hist,  de  la  Flor.,  Lib.  II.,  Chap. 
XXII. 

"The  chief's  house  stood  near  the  beach  upon  a  very 
high  mount  made  by  hand  for  defense." — Gentleman  of 
Elvas,  Bradford  Club  Series,  Vol.  V.,  p.  23. 

These  mounds  are  identical  in  size  and  shape  with  the 
so-called  "temple  mounds"  of  Squier  and  Davis. 

One  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  De  Soto's  expedi 
tion  the  French  began  the  settlement  of  Louisiana.  At 
that  time  these  tribes  had  not  yet  given  up  the  custom  of 
mound-building,  for  a  number  of  early  French  writers 
mention  the  practice. 

M.  de  la  Harpe  says :  "The  cabins  of  the  Yasous, 
Courous,  Offogoula  and  Ouspie  are  dispersed  over  the 
country  on  mounds  of  earth  made  with  their  own  hands." 
— Annals  of  Louisiana  Hist.  Coll.,  p.  196. 

Pericault,  in  1704,  said  of  them:  "The  houses  of  the 
suns  (chiefs)  are  built  upon  mounds  and  are  distin 
guished  from'  each  other  by  their  size.  The  mound  upon 
which  the  house  of  the  great  chief  or  sun  is  built  is 
larger  than  the  rest,  and  the  sides  of  it  steeper." 

Du  Pratz,  who  spent  twenty  years  among  the  Natchez, 
wrote  as  follows  in  1720:  "As  I  was  an  intimate  friend 
to  the  sovereign  of  the  Natchez,  he  showed  me  their 
temple,  which  was  about  thirty  feet  square,  and  stands 
upon  an  artificial  mound  about  eight  feet  high  by  the 
side  of  a  small  river  (St.  Catherine).  The  mound  slopes 
insensibly  from  the  main  front,  which  is  northwards,  but 
on  the  other  sides  it  is  somewhat  steeper. ' 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  311 

Others  of  the  French  who  have  mentioned  the  fact 
of  mound-building  by  the  historic  southern  tribes  are 
De  Tonti,  St.  Cosme,  De  la  Source,  Joutel,  Cravier  and 
La  Petit. 

The  Cherokees  also  were  Mound  Builders.  Bartram, 
speaking  of  their  ancient  town  of  Stricoe,  says:  "On 
these  towering  hills  appeared  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
famous  town  of  Stricoe.  Here  was  a  vast  Indian  mount 
or  tumulus  and  great  terrace,  on  which  stood  the 
council  house,  with  banks  encompassing  their  circuit; 
here  were  also  old  peach  and  plum  orchards;  some  of 
the  trees  appeared  yet  thriving  and  fruitful." — Bartram, 

P-  343- 

In  1765  Lieut.  Henry  Timberlake  drew  a  map  of  a 
portion  of  the  Cherokee  country  and  located  their  "over- 
hill  towns,"  those  in  the  valley  of  the  Little  Tennessee. 
The  location  of  these  towns  upon  Timberlake's  map 
agrees  exactly  with  the  location  of  the  various  mound 
groups  of  that  section  upon  the  map  of  the  Geological 
Survey  of  the  National  Bureau.  Mound  Group  No.  i, 
on  the  latter  map,  is  located  where  Timberlake  locates 
the  Cherokee  town  of  "Mialoqu  \ ;"  No.  2  is  identified 
with  "Tuskegee ;"  No.  3,  with  "Tommotley ;"  No.  4,  with 
"Toqua ;"  No.  5,  with  "Tennessee ;"  No.  6,  with  "Chote ;" 
No.  7,  with  "Settacoo;"  No.  8,  with  "Halfway  Town;" 
No.  9,  with  "Chillowey,"  and  No.  10,  with  "Tellassee." 
Who  can  say,  in  the  face  of  this,  that  the  Cherokees  were 
not  Mound  Builders?1 

As  still  further  confirmatory  of  the  theory  that  the 
Cherokees  were  Mound  Builders,  we  have  the  various 
works  of  art  from  the  mounds  which  are  identical  vvith 
the  works  of  art  of  this  tribe.  Among  these  are  the 


"Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian  Times,"  p.  32. 


312 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


so-called    "Monitor"    pipe    and    the    shell    gorgets    with 
engravings  upon  them. 

The  "Monitor"  pipe  was  made  of  soapstone  with  a 
flat  base,  two  or  three  inches  long  and  perhaps  one 
broad,  from  the  middle  of  which  rose  the  bowl,  often 
carved  into  the  shape  of  a  bird,  animal  or  human  head. 
Because  of  its  general  resemblance  to  the  ironclad  "Mon 
itor"  it  has  been  given  its  name.  These  pipes  formed  no 
uncommon  part  of  the  Mound  Builders'  possessions,  and 
are  found  throughout  the  entire  mound  territory.  But 

just  such  pipes  were 
made  and  used  by  the 
Cherokees  within  his- 
t  o  r  i  c  times.  "The 
'Monitor'  pipe,  or  pipe 
with  broad  base  run 
ning  out  in  front  and 
behind  the  bowl,  is 
considered  typical  of 
the  people  who  built 
the  'sacrificial  mounds' 
and  'sacred  enclosures' 
of  Ohio ;  yet,  according 
to  Adair,  the  Cherokees  made  pipes  of  precisely  this 
pattern,  as  he  says  'the  forepart  of  each  commonly  runs 
out  with  a  sharp  peak,  two  or  three  ringers  broad  and  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  on  both  sides  of  the  bowl 
lengthwise;  they  cut  several  pictures  with  a  great  deal  of 
skill  and  labour.'  This  seems  not  only  to  connect  the 
builders  of  these  typical  Ohio  works  with  the  Indians, 
thus  presenting  a  difficult  problem  for  the  advocates  of 
the  above  theory  to  solve,  but  forms  another  strong  link 
in  the  chain  of  Cherokee  history  we  are  trying  to  fol 
low." — Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian  Times,  p.  73. 


MONITOR  PIPES. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


313 


The  shell  gorgets  taken  from  the  mounds  have  vari 
ous  designs  carved  upon  them,  such  as  crosses,  half 
moons,  stars,  faces  and  serpents.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
these  are  the  work  of  the  ancient  inhabitants,  yet  just 
such  ornaments  were  made  and  worn  by  the  Cherokees 
and  other  tribes  after  the  occupancy  of  the  mound  terri 
tory  by  the  whites ;  and  this  identifies  the  American  In 
dians  with  the  Mound  Builders.  Lawson,  who  traveled 
in  North  Carolina  in  1700,  says  that  "the  Indians  often 
times  make  of  a  cer 
tain  large  sea-shell  a 
sort  of  gorge,  which 
they  wear  about  their 
neck  in  a  string,  so  it 
hangs  on  their  collar, 
whereon  is  some 
times  engraven  a 
cross  or  some  odd 
sort  of  figure  which 
comes  next  in  their 
fancy."  —  Cherokees, 
p.  26. 

The      "Monitor" 
pipes  and  the  shell  gorgets  plainly  identify  the  Cherokees 
with  the  Mound  Builders. 

Passing  to  the  State  of  New  York,  we  have  the  con 
cession  that  the  mounds  of  that  State  were  the  work  of 
the  Iroquoian  tribes.  Baldwin,  a  most  zealous  advocate 
of  the  opposite  theory,  says:  "It  has  heretofore  been 
stated  that  remains  of  this  people" — Mound  Builders — 
"exist  in  western  New  York,  but  a  more  intelligent  and 
careful  examination  shows  that  the  works  in  western 
New  York  are  not  remains  of  the  Mound  Builders.  This 
is  now  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Squier,  formed  on  personal 


SHELL  GORGET. 


314  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

investigation  since  the  great  work  of  Squier  and  Davis 
was  published." — Ancient  America,  p.  32.  This  is  an 
important  concession.  Golden,  who  wrote  in  1750,  states 
that  the  tribes  of  that  State,  after  the  corpse  had  been 
placed  in  a  round  hole  in  the  ground,  raised  "the  earth 
in  a  round  hill  over  it." 

Other  tribes  have  also  built  mounds  in  very  recent 
times.  Lewis  and  Clark  make  mention  of  the  erection 
of  a  large  burial-mound  on  the  bluffs  of  the  Missouri  in 
1802.  Beck's  "Gazeteer  for  Illinois  and  Missouri,"  1821, 
speaks  of  the  erection  of  an  immense  memorial  earth 
work  over  the  mortal  remains  of  an  Osage  chief.  And 
a  group  of  fifteen  mounds  near  Ottumwa,  Iowa,  were 
thrown  up  to  cover  the  dead  slain  in  a  battle  between  the 
indomitable  Black  Hawk,  and  his  Sacs  and  Foxes,  and  a 
force  of  Omahas  little  more  than  seventy-five  years  ago ; 
while  near  Eldon,  of  the  same  State,  there  is  a  group  of 
seven  others  which  cover  a  band  of  dead  lowas  slain  in 
a  battle  with  the  same  chief.1 

The  Algonkins  also  built  mounds.  Brinton  states: 
"The  neighbors  of  the  Iroquois,  the  various  Algonkin 
tribes,  were  occasionally  constructors  of  mounds.  In 
comparatively  recent  times  we  have  a  description  of  a 
Victory  mound'  raised  by  the  Chippeways  after  a  suc 
cessful  encounter  with  the  Sioux." — Essays  of  an  Ameri 
canist,  p.  70. 

And  it  is  to  tribes  of  this  stock,  mainly,  that,  the  stone 
graves  are  to  be  attributed.  "The  Kickapoos  living  in 
southern  Illinois,  and  the  Shawnees,  who  dwelt  near 
Nashville,  buried  their  dead,  until  quite  recent  times,  in 
stone  graves." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  188. 

We  come  now  to  the   State  of   Ohio,  which  bears 

1  "The  Mound-building  Age  in  America." 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


315 


evidence  of  supporting  a  denser  Mound  Builder  popula 
tion  than  any  other  State,  perhaps,  in  the  Union.  The 
mounds  and  inclosures  of  this  section  were,  most  of 
them,  erected  before  the  Columbian  epoch,  and  even 
among  those  who  hold  to  their  Indian  origin  there  is  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  which  tribe,  or  tribes,  to 
assign  them.  Dr.  Brinton  early  advanced  the  theory  that 
their  builders  were  the  ancestors  of  the  Chata  Muskoki 
tribes,  who,  after  their  dispersion,  moved  farther  south. 
But  in  later  years  the  learned  Doctor  seemed  disposed  to 
modify  this  theory  somewhat,  so  as  to  divide  the  honor 
between  the  Muskoki  tribes  and  the  Cherokees.1 

Professor  Thomas  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  earth 
works  of  that  State  were  the  joint  work  of  the  Chero 
kees,  Shawnees  and  some  few  other  Indian  tribes,  and 
this  seems  to  agree  best  with  the  facts  as  they  have  been 
brought  out  by  traditional,  historical  and  archaeological 
researches. 

It  has  been  ascertained  that  the  State  was  anciently 
inhabited  by  two  hostile,  savage  tribes,  the  dolicocephali 
of  the  Muskingum  Valley  and  the  brachycephali  of  the 
valleys  of  the  Miami  and  the  Scioto.  These  tribes  were 
the  Ohio  Mound  Builders.  The  attempt  has  been  made 
to  trace  a  connection  between  them  and  historic  tribes, 
and  a  few  clues  have  been  found  which  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  long-heads  were  the  Cherokees  and  the  short- 
heads  the  Lenapes  and  Hurons.  The  stock  which  for 
merly  inhabited  the  valleys  of  the  Miami  and  the  Scioto 
bore  unmistakable  osteological  affinities  to  the  stone- 
grave  people  of  Tennessee,  and,  as  the  Shawnees  who 
inhabited  that  State  buried  their  dead  in  stone  graves,  it 
is  inferred  that  they  were  one  with  its  ancient  inhabitants 

1  "Essays  of  an  Americanist,"  p.  82.  ' 


316  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

and  also  of  the  same  race  with  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
the  Miami  and  Scioto  Valleys,  as  they,  too,  buried  their 
dead  in  the  same  kind  of  sepulchres.  Therefore  Pro 
fessor  Thomas  concludes  that  both  Fort  Ancient  and 
Fort  Hill  were  erected  by  this  tribe. 

The  evidence  connecting  the  Cherokees  with  the  other 
stock  is  very  strong.  According  to  the  Delaware  tradi 
tion,  obtained  by  Heckewelder,  the  Delawares  (who  were 
originally  one  with  the  Shawnees  and  Mohicans)  came 
from  the  far  western  part  of  the  continent.  After  a 
very  long  journey  they  arrived  at  the  river  called  the 
Naemaesi  Sipu,  where  they  met  the  Mengwe,  or  Hurons, 
who  had  also  left  their  old  country  for  a  new.  The 
Lenape  spies,  who  had  been  sent  ahead,  returned  from 
the  land  beyond  the  river  and  reported  that  the  country 
was  inhabited  by  a  very  powerful  and  industrious  people 
called  by  themselves  Talligeu,  or  Tallegwi,  who  had  reg 
ular  fortifications  and  intrenchments.  The  Lenape,  after 
hearing  this  report,  sent  a  messenger  to  the  Tallegwi 
requesting  permission  to  settle  in  their  country.  This 
was  promptly  refused,  but  they  were  given  permission  to 
pass  through  and  seek  a  home  to  the  eastward.  After 
the  messenger  returned,  the  Lenape  made  preparations 
and  began  to  cross  the  river,  when  the  Tallegwi  treacher 
ously  fell  upon  them,  slew  a  great  number  and  drove  the 
rest  back.  Fired  at  this  treachery,  they  called  a  council 
of  their  chief  men  to  decide  upon  what  was  best  to  be 
done,  to  retreat  as  cowards  or  to  fight  it  out  as  men.  At 
this  juncture  the  Mengwe,  who  had  heretofore  taken  no 
part  in  the  matter,  offered  to  join  them,  upon  condition 
that  they  would  divide  the  country  with  them  after  it  had 
been  conquered.  The  proposal  was  gladly  accepted,  and 

1  "Cherokees   in   Pre-Columbian    Times,"    p.    79. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


317 


the  two  joined  forces  against  the  original  inhabitants. 
The  war,  which  was  long  and  bloody,  resulted  favorably 
to  the  allies,  and  the  Tallegwi  were  driven  from  the  land 
and  were  forced  to  flee  toward  the  south,  while  the 
victors  divided  the  land  between  them,  the  Mengwe  tak 
ing  the  northern  part  along  the  lakes  and  the  Lenape  the 
southern  part  along  the  Ohio  River. 

That  the  Tallegwi  were  the  Mound  Builders  there 
seems  to  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  and  some  have  seen  in 
them,  at  their  expulsion,  the  migrating  Toltecan  hordes 
pouring  down  from  the  regions  of  the  north  into  Mex 
ico.  But  later  students  have  generally  given  up  this 
theory,  and  many,  for  several  reasons,  identify  them 
with  the  Cherokees,  who  at  the  time  of  the  early  settle 
ment  of  the  country  were  living  in  Tennessee,  North 
Carolina  and  adjacent  territory. 

One  of  the  most  weighty  reasons  for  connecting  the 
Tallegwi  with  the  Cherokees  is  their  name.  The  former 
are  variously  called  in  the  traditions  Allegewi,  Talle- 
gewi,  Tallegwi,  Tallegeu  and  Tallike.  The  Cherokees 
were  first  called  "Chelaques"  and  "Achelaques"  by 
the  historians  of  De  Soto's  expedition.  The  French  called 
them  "Cheraqui."  And  the  name  as  we  have  it  was  first 
used  in  1708.  The  name  that  they  give  themselves  is 
"Tsalagi"  in  their  Middle  and  Western  dialects  and 
"Tsaragi"  in  their  Eastern.  The  reader  will  observe  that 
there  is  close  agreement  in  sound  between  Tallike,  the 
name  of  the  ancient  Mound  Builders  of  Ohio,  and 
Tsalagi,  the  name  that  the  Cherokees  give  themselves. 
"Name,  location  and  legends,"  says  Brinton,  "combine  to 
identify  the  Cherokees  or  Tsalaki  with  the  Tallike ;  and 
this  is  as  much  evidence  as  we  can  expect  to  produce  in 
such  researches."- — Walam  Olum,  p.  231. 

Another  reason  for  identifying  the  Tallike  with  the 


3i8  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Cherokees  is  that  their  language  points  to  the  north  for 
its  derivation;  it  is  an  offshoot  of  the  language  of  the 
Huron-Iroquois  stock.  "Linguistically,"  says  Mooney, 
"the  Cherokee  belong  to  the  Iroquoian  stock,  the  rela 
tionship  having  been  suspected  by  Barton  over  a  century 
ago,  and  by  Gallatin  and  Hale  at  a  later  period,  and 
definitely  established  by  Hewitt  in  1887.  While  there 
can  now  be  no  question  of  the  connection,  the  marked 
lexical  and  grammatical  differences  indicate  that  the 
separation  must  have  occurred  at  a  very  early  period." — 
Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American 
Ethnology,  p.  16. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Cherokees  were 
Mound  Builders  and  that  they  claimed  to  have  built  the 
mounds  on  Grave  Creek,  West  Virginia,  which  include 
one  of  the  largest  burial-mounds  in  the  country,  whose 
dimensions  are  one  thousand  feet  in  circumference  by 
seventy-five  feet  high.  The  traditions  of  other  tribes  sus 
tain  this  tradition.  Mooney  says  of  the  Wyandots :  "The 
Wyandot  confirm  the  Delaware  story  and  fix  the  identifi 
cation  of  the  expelled  tribe.  According  to  their  tradition, 
as  narrated  in  1802,  the  ancient  fortifications  in  the  Ohio 
Valley  had  been  erected  in  the  course  of  a  long  war 
between  themselves  and  the  Cherokees,  which  resulted 
finally  in  the  defeat  of  the  latter." — Ibid,  p.  19. 

And  Prof.  John  Fiske  writes:  "The  Cherokees  were 
formerly  classed  in  the  Muskoki  group,  along  with  the 
Creeks  and  Choctaws,  but  a  closer  study  of  their  lan 
guage  seems  to  show  that  they  were  a  somewhat  remote 
offshoot  of  the  Huron-Iroquois  stock.  For  a  long  time 
they  occupied  the  country  between  the  Ohio  River  and 
the  Great  Lakes,  and  probably  built  the  mounds  that  are 
still  to  be  seen  there.  Somewhere  about  the  thirteenth 
or  fourteenth  century  they  were  gradually  pushed  south- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  319 

ward  into  the  Muskoki  region  by  repeated  attacks  from 
the  Lenape  and  Hurons.  The  Cherokees  were  probably 
also  the  builders  of  the  mounds  of  eastern  Tennessee 
and  western  North  Carolina.  They  retained  their  mound- 
building-  habits  sometime  after  the  white  man  came  upon 
the  scene." — The  Discovery  of  America,  Vol.  I.,  p.  145. 

From  the  foregoing  facts  it  seems  highly  probable 
that  the  Cherokees  were  the  Tallegwi,  and  that  they,  with 
the  Lenapes  and  Hurons,  were  the  Mound  Builders  of 
Ohio. 

Thomas  attributes  the  mounds  of  the  various  sections 
of  the  United  States  to  the  Indian  tribes  as  follows: 
"The  proof  is  apparently  conclusive  that  the  Cherokee 
were  mound  builders,  and  that  to  them  are  to  be  attrib 
uted  most  of  the  mounds  of  east  Tennessee  and  western 
North  Carolina;  it  also  renders  it  probable  that  they 
were  the  authors  of  the  ancient  works  of  the  Kanawha 
Valley  in  West  Virginia.  There  are  also  strong  indica 
tions  that  the  Tallegwi  of  tradition  were  Cherokee  and 
the  authors  of  some  of  the  principal  works  of  Ohio.  The 
proof  is  equally  conclusive  that  to  the  Shawnee  are  to  be 
attributed  the  box-shaped  stone  graves,  and  the  mounds 
and  other  works  directly  connected  with  them,  in  the 
region  south  of  the  Ohio,  especially  those  of  Kentucky, 
Tennessee  and  northern  Georgia,  and  possibly  also  some 
of  the  mounds  and  stone  graves  in  the  vicinity  of  Cin 
cinnati.  The  stone  graves  in  the  valley  of  the  Delaware 
and  most  of  those  in  Ohio  are  attributable  to  the  Dela 
ware  Indians.  There  are  sufficient  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  ancient  works  in  northern  Mississippi  were  built 
chiefly  by  the  Chickasaw ;  those  in  the  region  of  Flint 
River,  southern  Georgia,  by  the  Uchee ;  and  that  a  large 
portion  of  those  of  the  Gulf  States  were  built  by  the 
Muskokee  tribes.  The  evidence  obtained  is  rendering  it 


320  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

quite  probable  that  the  Winnebago  were  formerly  mound 
builders  and  the  authors  not  only  of  burial  tumuli,  but 
also  of  some  of  those  strange  works  known  as  'effigy 
inounds,'  so  common  in  Wisconsin.  That  most  of  me 
ancient  works  of  New  York  must  be  attributed  to  the 
Iroquois  tribes  is  now  generally  conceded." — Work  in 
Mound  Exploration,  p.  13. 

Now,  to  sum  up:  The  Mound  Builders  were  not  the 
Jaredites  and  Nephites,  because  they  were  one  people, 
were  divided  into  numerous  independent  tribes,  came 
from  the  north  or  northwest,  began  and  ended  their 
work  too  late,  were  of  an  inferior  culture,  and  are  identi 
fied  with  existing  tribes  by  traditional,  historical  and 
archaeological  evidences.  The  theory  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  then,  that  the  United  States  was  the  seat,  in 
ancient  times,  of  a  "wonderful  civilization"  which  "had 
its  base  and  origin  in  Central  America  and  Mexico/'  is 
wholly  a  creation  of  the  fancy  and  unsupported  by  the 
facts. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


321 


CHAPTER    VII. 

The  Civilization  of  Ancient  America  Neither  Jareditic  nor 
Nephitic — The  Origin  of  American  Civilization — The  An 
tiquity  of  American  Civilization — Certain  Features  of  Ameri 
can  Civilization  Which  Plainly  Oppose  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

America  presents  a  broad  and  fertile  field  of  research 
to  the  archaeologist.  Indeed,  nowhere  else  in  the  entire 
world  can  be  found  remains  which  furnish  more  material 
for  study  than  do  those  on  the  western  continent.  In  the 
Mississippi  Valley  we  have  the  interesting  memorials  of 
the  Mound  Builders ;  in  the  southwestern  part  of  the 
United  States  are  to  be  seen  the  deserted  habitations  of 
the  Cliff  Dwellers;  in  Mexico  and  Central  America  are 
found  the  ruined  temples  of  the  Nahuas  and  Mayas ;  and 
in  Peru  loom  up  before  the  traveler  and  explorer  the 
crumbling  edifices  of  the  Incas  and  their  predecessors. 
Hundreds  of  the  works  in  these  sections  have  been 
explored  and  have  been  described  in  books  on  American 
archaeology,  yet  much  of  the  mystery  which  has  shrouded 
them  remains,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  ever  will  remain. 

The  origin  of  the  civilization,  or  civilizations,  that 
built  the  prehistoric  American  cities  is  a  question  that 
has  provoked  much  discussion  among  Americanists.  Its 
simplest  answer  has  generally  been  rejected,  and  in  its 
place  have  been  substituted  the  wildest  and  most  un 
reasonable  hypotheses.  It  has  seemed  very  much  easier 
for  most  reasoners  to  attribute  the  origin  of  aboriginal 
culture  to  a  foreign  source  than  to  conceive  of  its  native 
development.  In  later  years,  however,  views  on  this 
question  have  been  changing,  until  to-day  antiquarians 


322  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

are  coming  to  look  upon  it  in  its  true  light  as  an  indig 
enous  product ;  and,  I  venture  to  say,  few  now  believe 
that  any  of  the  works  of  aboriginal  art  were  above  the 
ability  of  the  more-advanced  tribes,  the  Aztecs,  Mayas 
and  Peruvians,  who  dwelt  in  the  regions  where  these 
antiquities  abound  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery. 

When  speaking  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Mexico, 
Central  America  and  Peru  as  being  "civilized,"  let  it  be 
understood  that  this  term  is  employed  in  a  relative  and 
not  in  an  absolute  sense ;  for,  strictly  speaking,  no  nation 
in  America  had  ever  progressed  beyond  the  middle  status 
of  barbarism,  the  smelting  of  iron  ore  being  wholly  un 
known  to  them.1  When  compared  with  the  savage  tribes 
around  them,  however,  they  may  be  said  to  have  attained 
to  a  certain  degree  of  civilization,  their  works  indicating 
a  stage  of  culture  at  least  one  step  in  advance  of  the 
tribes  of  the  other  parts  of  the  continent. 

Throughout  the  New  World  the  people  were  fetich 
and  sun  worshipers,  animists  and  polytheists.  In  Peru 
and  Tezcuco  it  is  claimed,  however,  some  of  the  more 
intelligent  of  the  natives  broke  away  from  the  prevailing 
sun-worship  and  adored  an  incorporeal  deity.  The  origi 
nal  words  for  God  in  the  American  tongues  do  not 
express  the  idea  of  personality,  but,  simply,  the  super 
natural  in  general,  the  mysterious  and  unknown.  The 
practice  of  offering  human  sacrifices  was  observed  among 
all  the  civilized  nations,  though  to  a  very  limited  extent 
in  Peru.  In  both  Mexico  and  Central  America  such  sac 
rifices  were  often  devoured  in  religious  feasts.  The 
number  four  was  to  all  American  religions  what  the 
number  seven  is  to  the  Jewish.  The  gentile  system  pre 
vailed  and  most  of  the  tribes  reckoned  descent  in  the 


1  Morgan's  "Ancient  Society,"  pp.  9-12, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  323 

female  line.  Practically  all  forms  of  primitive  govern 
ment  were  to  be  found,  from  the  most  absolute  despotism 
to  the  lowest  form  of t democracy.  The  Isthmus  of  Pan 
ama  divided  the  continent  into  two  grand  divisions  in 
respect  to  its  native  architecture:  north  of  the  Isthmus 
the  habit  prevailed  of  erecting  large  structures  on  pyra 
midal  bases ;  south  of  the  Isthmus  the  pyramid  as  a  foun 
dation  for  buildings  is  seldom,  if  ever,  seen.  The  Mound 
Builders  used  no  cement  or  cut  stone ;  the  Peruvians, 
Mayas,  Mexicans  and  Cliff  Dwellers  employed  both.  But 
little  sculpturing  was  done  in  Peru ;  it  appears  in  pro 
fusion  on  the  mural  remains  of  Central  America ;  the 
sculpture  work  of  the  Mound  Builders  consisted  in  the 
manufacture  of  pipes  into  imitations  of  birds,  beasts  and 
the  human  figure  and  the  carving  of  slate  and  shells.  In 
hieroglyphical  writing  the  Mayas  took  the  lead,  followed 
by  the  Mexicans ;  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  Mound  Build 
ers,  Cliff  Dwellers  and  Peruvians  were  only  pictographs, 
while  among  the  last-named  communications  were  car 
ried  on  by  means  of  variously-colored  and  knotted  cords 
called  quip os.  All  of  the  American  nations  manufac 
tured  pottery,  and  in  some  sections  the  art  was  carried  to 
a  high  point  of  excellence.  Iron  was  unknown  among 
the  tribes  except  in  its  crude  state,  in  which  it  was  made 
into  ornaments  by  a  process  of  grinding  and  rubbing. 
Bronze  was  manufactured  by  the  Mexicans  and  Peru 
vians,  but  was  unknown  to  the  Mayas.  In  Mexico  and 
Central  America  the  volcanic  glass,  obsidian,  was  made 
into  cutting  tools.  Gold,  silver  and  copper  were  worked 
into  ornaments  of  a  high  grade  of  finish  in  Mexico, 
Central  America  and  Peru,  where  the  art  of  smelting 
was  understood ;  the  Cliff  Dwellers  and  Mound  Builders 
worked  these  metals  in  their  cold  state.  Cloth,  in  Peru, 
was  made  from  cotton  and  the  wool  of  the  llama  and 


324  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

vicuna ;  in  Mexico  and  Central  America  from  cotton,  and 
in  North  America  from  cotton,  hemp,  hair  and  bird 
feathers.  In  all  parts  maize  was  the  staple  article  of 
food,  taking  the  place  in  the  New  World  that  rice  fills 
among  the  inhabitants  of  eastern  Asia.  In  different  parts 
of  the  continent  tobacco,  melons,  squashes,  beans,  pep 
pers  and  potatoes  were  grown.  The  Cliff  Dwellers,  Mex 
icans  and  Peruvians  irrigated  their  fields  with  artificial 
ditches.  The  less-advanced  tribes  reckoned,  as  do  all 
savage  people,  by  moons,  seasons  and  years,  but  among 
the  Mexicans,  Central  Americans,  Muyscas  and  Peru 
vians  we  find  artificial  calendar  systems.  Mummification, 
by  different  methods,  was  practiced  in  some  parts,  though 
the  bodies  found,  in  most  instances,  were  preserved  by 
the  antiseptic  properties  in  the  soil  or  by  the  coldness 
and  dryness  of  the  climate.  Throughout  North  America 
the  tribes  used  the  frail  canoe,  but  the  Mayas  made  boats 
that  were  seaworthy  and  would  carry  as  many  as  fifty 
persons  and  kept  up  a  commerce  with  neighboring  tribes. 
The  languages  of  America  are  multitudinous,  there  being 
1 80  linguistic  stocks  on  the  continent.  In  structure,  with 
a  possible  exception  or  two,  they  are  polysynthetic  and 
possess  certain  features  by  which  they  are  distinguished 
from  the  tongues  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  The 
Americans  had  no  domestic  animals  but  a  wolfish  kind 
of  dog,  and,  among  the  Peruvians,  the  llama,  which  was 
highly  prized  for  its  hair,  for  food  and  for  carrying 
burdens.  This  sums  up,  in  brief,  the  things  of  which  the 
more  advanced  of  the  ancient  Americans  were  capable. 
Just  how  far  the  culture  of  each  of  the  sections 
mentioned  influenced  the  culture  of  the  others  is  hard 
to  say.  It  seems  certain  that  the  Peruvians  and  Central 
Americans  exerted  no  influence  upon  each  other  after 
they  began  to  build  those  monuments  which  still  remain ; 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  325 

what  contact  they  had  before  none  can  tell.  On  Peru 
vian  architecture  and  the  features  in  which  it  differed 
from  that  of  the  Mayas  and  Mexicans,  Brinton  says: 

"Peruvian  architecture  was  peculiar  and  imposing.  It 
showed  no  trace  of  an  inspiration  from  Yucatan  or 
Mexico.  Its  special  features  were  cyclopean  walls  of 
huge  stones  fitted  together  without  mortar;  structures  of 
several  stories  in  height,  not  erected  upon  tumuli  or 
pyramids ;  the  doors  narrowing  in  breadth  toward  the 
top;  the  absence  of  pillars  or  arches;  the  avoidance  of 
exterior  and  mural  decoration;  the  artistic  disposition  of 
niches  in  the  walls,  and  the  extreme  solidity  of  the  foun 
dations.  These  points  show  that  Inca  architecture  was 
not  derived  from  that  north  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
In  the  decorative  effects  of  the  art  they  were  deficient; 
neither  their  sculpture  in  stone  nor  their  mural  paintings 
at  all  equaled  those  of  Yucatan." — The  American  Race, 
p.  213. 

These  points  of  dissimilarity  will  also  apply  with 
equal  force  against  the  contention  that  the  civilization  of 
Central  America  came  from  Peru. 

In  South  America  the  culture  of  but  one  nation,  the 
Muyscas,  bore  any  marked  affinities  to  that  of  the  people 
on  or  north  of  the  Isthmus.  Affinities  in  art  work  have 
been  traced  between  this  people  and  the  Chiriquians 
dwelling  on  the  Isthmus,  and  consist  in  certain  like  fea 
tures  'in  articles  of  stone,  pottery  and  gold.  Brinton 
remarks :  "Very  slight  connection  has  been  shown  be 
tween  the  civilization  of  North  and  South  America,  and 
that  only  near  the  Isthmus  of  Panama." — Myths  of  the 
New  World,  p.  43. 

In  North  America  the  evidences  of  contact  between 
the  various  civilized  tribes  are  most  marked.  The  Mayas 
and  Nahuas,  and  the  Zapotecs  who  dwelt  between  them, 


326  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

erected  colossal  buildings  upon  pyramidal  foundations, 
and  the  pyramid,  as  a  basis  for  such  structures,  is  trace 
able  northward  into  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Hence  it  is 
probable  that  the  art  germ  in  all  these  sections  had  a 
common  source  which  is  to  be  sought  for  somewhere  in 
North  America.  As  the  traditions  of  the  Mayas,  Nahuas 
and  Zapotecs,  as  well  as  those  of  the  mound-building 
tribes  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  pointed  to  the  north  or 
west  as  the  directions  from  which  they  originally  came, 
it  makes  it  certain  that  we  must  look  to  some  locality 
between  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Pacific  as  the  point 
where  they  received  their  first  impressions  of  that  culture 
which  they  developed  in  those  regions  where  they  after 
wards  dwelt.  The  point  of  divergence  for  all  these  races 
Brinton  would  locate  south  of  the  receding  glacial  ice- 
sheet,  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains;  while  Gibbs  looked  upon  the  region  between 
the  Puget  Sound  and  Cape  Spencer  as  an  area  from 
which  human  swarms  might  have  issued  forth;1  but  the 
exact  locality  will  undoubtedly  always  remain  unknown. 
With  these  introductory  remarks  I  pass  on  to  show 
that  the  civilization  of  ancient  America  differed  both  in 
kind  and  in  degree  from  that  described  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICAN   CIVILIZATION. 

With  respect  to  the  origin  of  ancient  American  civil 
ization,  the  Book  of  Mormon  teaches  that  it  came  from 
two  countries,  at  two  consecutive  times,  and  was  derived 
from  three  nations  or  peoples.  That  of  the  Jaredites, 
which  Apostle  Kelley  asserts  was  Cushite  civilization,2 
was  brought  from  Babel;  while  that  of  the  Nephites, 

1  "Third  Rept.   Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.    151. 
•"Presidency   and  Priesthood,"  Chapter  XI. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  327 

which  all  Mormons  contend  was  Jewish  with  a  few 
Egyptia  2  features  intermingled,  was  brought  from  Jeru 
salem. 

i.  Did  ancient  American  civilization  come  from  the 
Tower  of  Bab  elf 

As  proof  that  the  first  civilized  people  came  from  the 
Tower  of  Babel,  we  are  referred  to  the  flood  myths  that 
are  so  common  among  American  tribes.  "The  Book  of 
Mormon  statement  that  a  colony  came  from  the  Tower 
of  Babel,"  says  Elder  Phillips,  "not  only  agrees  with 
Gen.  11:9,  but  also  with  the  traditions  had  by  the  Ameri 
can  aborigines." — Book  of  Mormon  Verified,  p.  2.  And 
Apostle  Kelley  declares  that  "this  position  is  supported 
by  the  scientific  findings  made  in  Central  America,  re 
vealing  traditions  of  Noah,  the  flood,  the  ark  and  the 
creation  of  the  world." — Presidency  and  Priesthood,  p. 
268. 

The  following  flood  and  migration  myths,  taken  from 
Short's  "North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  are  given  by 
Elder  Etzenhouser  in  his  "Book  Unsealed,"  pp.  4-7,  to 
prove  this  theory: 

"Adair,  the  expert,  and  Emanuel  De  Moraes  agree 
that  the  Quiches  by  tradition  affirm  that  they  made  a 
long  journey  by  land  and  crossed  the  sea  from  the  east. 
The  tradition  of  their  origin  states  that  they  came  from 
the  far  east  across  immense  tracts  of  land  and  water." 

"He" — De  la  Vega — "fails  to  give  any  definite  infor 
mation  from  the  document" — one  of  the  old  books  of 
Central  America — "except  the  most  general  statements 
with  reference  to  Votan's  place  in  the  calendar,  and  his 
having  seen  the  Tower  of  Babel,  at  which  each  people 
was  given  a  new  language." 

"It  is  found  in  the  history  of  the  Toltecs  that  this 
age  and  first  world,  as  they  call  it,  lasted  1,716  years; 


328  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

that  men  were  destroyed  by  tremendous  rains  and  light 
nings  from  the  sky,  and  even  all  the  land,  without  the 
exception  of  anything,  and  the  highest  mountains,  were 
covered  up  and  submerged  in  water  .  .  .  fifteen  cubits 
.  .  .  and  how  after  men  multiplied  they  erected  a  very 
high  .  .  .  tower  ...  in  order  to  take  refuge  in  it,  should 
the  second  world  (age)  be  destroyed.  Presently  the  lan 
guage  was  confused,  and,  not  able  to  understand  each 
other,  they  went  to  different  parts  of  the  earth.  The 
Toltecs,  consisting  of  seven  friends  and  their  wives,  who 
understood  the  same  language,  came  to  these  parts,  .  .  . 
520  years  after  the  flood." 

"That  all  the  natives" — of  Mexico — "came  from 
seven  caves,  and  that  these  seven  caves  are  the  seven 
ships  or  galleys  in  which  the  first  populators  of  the  land 
came.  This  people  came  in  quest  of  the  terrestrial  para 
dise,  and  were  known  by  the  name  of  Tamoanchan,  by 
which  they  mean,  'We  seek  our  home.' '  This  tradition 
is  made  to  harmonize  with  the  coming  of  the  Jaredites 
by  the  supposition  that  they  came  to  the  New  World  in 
seven  of  their  eight  barges,  the  remaining  one  carrying 
their  stores  and  provisions 

After  giving  these,  and  several  other  like  accounts, 
Mr.  Etzenhouser  remarks:  "All  of  the  above  citations 
are  very  confirmatory  of  the  account  cited  in  the  Book 
of  Mormon,  respecting  the  migration  of  the  Jaredites  to 
the  western  continent." 

But  the  migration  of  the  Jaredites  from  Babel  is  not 
proved  by  the  American  flood  myths  for  at  least  three 
important  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  those  which  more 
closely  agree  with  the  account  in  Genesis  are  known  to  be 
either  partly  or  wholly  spurious,  the  work  of  the  early 
missionaries  or  native  converts,  who  seemed  to  think  it 
their  bounden  duty  to  make  the  mythology  of  the  Ameri- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  329 

can  tribes  to  conform  to  their  own  religious  opinions.  In 
the  second  place,  it  is  impossible  to  determine  whether 
those  flood  myths,  about  whose  authenticity  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  relate  to  a  universal  flood,  or  to  a  flood,  or 
floods,  purely  local  (but  universal  so  far  as  the  knowledge 
of  the  tribes  possessing  them  went),  or  to  any  real  flood 
at  all.  And,  in  the  third  place,  all  these  flood  myths,  with 
probably  not  an  exception,  make  the  tribes  who  dwelt 
here  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  direct  descendants  of 
those  who  escaped  the  cataclysm  instead  of  the  descend 
ants  of  a  later  colony  as  the  Book  of  Mormon  declares. 
The  deluge  legends  of  America,  with  many  another 
of  the  myths  ascribed  to  the  early  inhabitants,  should  be 
cautiously  received.  Many  of  them  have  come  down  to 
us  through  the  hands  of  men  who  have  not  scrupled  to 
tamper  with  them  to  make  them  agree  with  the  Catholic 
faith.  Thus  we  have  in  the  mythology  of  Central  Amer 
ica  and  Mexico  not  only  traditions  of  a  deluge,  a  Tower 
of  Babel  and  a  scattering  of  tribes  similar,  even  in  detail, 
to  the  account  of  Moses  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  but  we 
also  have  such  features  of  the  Christian  faith  as  the 
birth,  sufferings,  death,  detention  and  ascension  of  Christ 
in  the  experiences  of  some  of  the  gods  of  those  countries. 
A  careful  study  of  these  myths  has  revealed  the  fact  that 
these  analogies  to  the  Christian  religion  are  either  false 
deductions  from  the  myths  themselves,  or  else  they  are 
interpolations.  Bancroft  says  on  the  flood  myths  of  Cen 
tral  America  and  Mexico:  "This  I  may  say  first,  how 
ever  ;  some  of  them  are  doubtless  spurious,  and  few  have 
escaped  the  renovating  touch  of  the  Spanish  priests  and 
chroniclers,  who  throughout  their  writings  seem  to  think 
it  their  bounden  duty  to  make  the  ideas  and  history  of 
the  New  World  correspond  to  those  of  the  Old." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  12. 


330  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

As  an  example  of  this,  we  may  take  the  Toltec  myth 
given  above.  This  myth  can  be  traced  no  further  back 
than  to  the  time  of  Ixtlilxochitl,  a  native  convert  to  the 
Catholic  faith.  Inspired  with  his  new  religion  he  sought 
zealously  to  make  that  of  his  fathers  conform  to  it,  with 
the  consequence  that  he  took  with  native  mythology  cer 
tain  inexcusable  liberties.  The  reader  will  only  have  to 
compare  his  with  the  flood  myths  about  whose  authen 
ticity  there  is  no  doubt,  to  detect  that  the  depth  of  the 
water,  the  erection  of  the  tower  and  the  confusion  of 
tongues  are  all  fabrications  from  the  Book  of  Genesis.1 

Even  the  commonly-received  flood  myths  of  Mexico 
are  of  doubtful  authenticity.  According  to  one  of  them, 
the  only  persons  who  escaped  the  deluge  were  Coxcox 
and  his  wife  Xochiquetzal.  These  saved  themselves  in 
the  hollow  trunk  of  a  bald  cypress.  When  the  waters 
had  assuaged  they  grounded  their  ark  upon  the  summit 
of  Mount  Colhuacan.  Here  they  increased  and  multi 
plied,  but  their  children  were  all  born  dumb,  and  re 
mained  so  until  they  were  taught  innumerable  languages 
by  a  dove.  Fifteen  of  these  children,  who  understood 
the  same  language,  or  related  languages,  were  the  an 
cestors  of  the  Toltecs,  Aztecs  and  Alcolhuas. 

Bancroft  says  of  this  myth:  "A  careful  comparison 
of  the  passages  given  above  will  show  that  this  whole 
story  of  the  escape  of  Coxcox  and  his  wife  in  a  boat 
from  a  great  deluge,  and  of  the  distribution  by  a  bird  of 
different  languages  to  their  descendants,  rests  on  the 
interpretation  of  certain  Aztec  paintings,  containing  sup 
posed  pictures  of  a  flood,  of  Coxcox  and  his  wife,  of  a 
canoe  or  rude  vessel  of  some  kind,  of  the  mountain  Cul- 
huacan,  which  was  the  Mexican  Ararat,  and  of  a  bird 

1  "Prehistoric   America,"   pp.   272,   273. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  331 

distributing  languages  to  a  number  of  men.  Not  one  of 
the  earliest  writers  on  Mexican  mythology,  none  of  those 
personally  familiar  with  the  natives  and  with  their  oral 
traditions  as  existing  at  the  time  of  or  immediately  after 
the  Conquest,  seems  to  have  known  this  legend;  Olmos, 
Sahagun,  Motolinia,  Mendieta,  Ixtlilxochitl  and  Camargo 
are  all  of  them  silent  with  regard  to  it.  These  facts  must 
give  rise  to  grave  suspicions  with  regard  to  the  accuracy 
of  the  commonly  accepted  version,  notwithstanding  its 
apparently  implicit  reception  up  to  this  time  by  the  most 
critical  historians.  These  suspicions  will  not  be  lessened 
by  the  result  of  the  researches  of  Don  Jose  Fernando 
Ramirez,  conservator  of  the  Mexican  National  Museum, 
a  gentleman  not  less  remarkable  for  his  familiarity  with 
the  language  and  antiquities  of  Mexico  than  for  the 
moderation  and  calmness  of  his  critical  judgments,  so 
far  as  these  are  known." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  68. 

Following  this  statement,  Bancroft  gives  this  gentle 
man's  discussion  and  interpretation  of  these  paintings, 
according  to  which,  instead  of  recording  a  history  of  the 
escape  of  a  people  from  an  universal  deluge,  they  simply 
describe,  pictographically,  the  wanderings  of  the  Mexi 
can  tribes  among  the  lakes  of  their  country,  their  journey 
beginning  at  a  place  "not  more  than  nine  miles  from  the 
gutters  of  Mexico"  ! l 

Similar  to  the  account  of  the  escape  of  Coxcox  and 
his  wife  is  that  of  the  escape  of  Tezpi,  given  in  a  tradi 
tion  from  Michoacan.  This  character  is  represented  as 
saving  himself,  his  wife  and  children  and  a  number  of 
animals  in  a  spacious  vessel.  When  the  waters  began  to 
go  down  he  sent  out  from  his  ark  a  vulture,  who  fed  on 
the  carcasses  of  the  dead  and  did  not  return.  He  then 

1  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  pp.  240,  241. 


332  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

sent  out  a  humming-bird,  which  returned  bringing  a  num 
ber  of  green  leaves,  by  which  Tezpi  knew  that  the  waters 
had  begun  to  subside.  He,  too,  landed  his  ark  on  the 
summit  of  Mount  Colhuacan.  Bancroft  says  on  this 
legend:  "We  have  also  read  the  reputed  Tarasco  legend 
of  Tezpi,  which  so  closely  resembles  the  Biblical  legend 
of  the  deluge  that  it  can  not  be  discussed  as  a  native 
tradition  at  all,  but  must  be  regarded  simply  as  the 
invention  of  some  Spanish  writer  who  thought  it  his 
mission  to  show  that  the  Hebrew  traditions  were  familiar 
to  the  Americans." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  13. 

But  there  are  certain  American  flood  myths  about 
whose  authenticity  there  can  be  no  question.  They  are 
found  among  the  Athapascas,  Algonkins,  Iroquois, 
Cherokees,  Chickasaws,  Caddoes,  Natchez,  Dakotas, 
Pueblos,  Aztecs,  Miztecs,  Muyscas,  Mayas,  Quiches, 
Quichuas  and  many  other  tribes.1  These  flood  myths 
are  distinguished,  however,  by  characteristics  so  peculiar 
and  features  so  unique  as  to  make  it  wholly  uncertain 
whether  they  refer  to  the  flood,  a  flood  or  to  any  real 
flood  at  all.  It  should  not  surprise  us  if  they  are  proved 
to  be  purely  mythical,  or,  at  best,  if  they  refer  only  to 
local  occurrences.  The  uncertainty  as  to  what  conclu 
sion  we  are  to  draw  from  them  will  be  seen  in  the  fol 
lowing  myths. 

According  to  a  Peruvian  myth,  a  shepherd  was  one 
day  tending  his  flock  of  llamas.  Noticing  that  their 
countenances  were  sad,  and  that  they  spent  the  night 
in  watching  the  stars,  he  questioned  them  concerning 
the  cause  of  the  same.  They  replied  that  they  had  seen 
six  stars  massed  together  in  the  heavens,  and  that  this 
was  the  sign  of  a  universal  flood,  which  was  about  to 

1  "Nineteenth   Rept.   Bu.   Am.   Ethno.,"   p.   445. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


333 


occur,  and  advised  him,  in  order  to  escape,  to  take  refuge 
on  some  high  mountain.  Taking  their  advice,  he  gath 
ered  his  flocks  and  family  together  and  proceeded  to  the 
summit  of  Mount  Ancasmarca,  where,  when  the  flood 
came,  he  was  safe  from  destruction.1 

According  to  another  Peruvian  tradition,  only  two 
brothers  were  saved  from  the  flood,  and  that  by  taking 
refuge  on  a  high  mountain  which  floated  upon  the 
waters.  After  the  flood  had  subsided  they,  having  eaten 
up  all  their  food,  went  down  into  the  valley  for  more. 
Upon  their  return  to  the  mountain  they  found,  to  their 
surprise,  that  food  had  already  been  prepared  for  them 
by  unknown  hands.  Curious  to  know  who  their  bene 
factors  were,  they  agreed  that  while  one  went  down  into 
the  valley  the  other  should  keep  watch.  Soon  after  the 
one  chosen  to  go  had  departed  the  one  who  was  left 
behind  saw  two  aras  with  the  faces  of  women  preparing 
their  food.  But  these,  becoming  aware  of  his  presence, 
fled.  Giving  chase,  he  soon  captured  one  of  them,  who 
became  his  wife.  From  this  union  sprang  the  tribe  of 
the  Canaris.2 

According  to  the  Cherokee  flood  myth,  the  Cherokee 
Noah  was  warned  of  the  coming  of  the  flood  or  freshet 
by  the  barking  of  a  dog,  and  saved  himself  and  his 
family  on  a  raft.3 

In  the  Algonkin  tradition  there  were  no  antediluvians 
and  no  family  which  escaped  the  flood,  but  after  the 
waters  had  subsided  the  earth  was  peopled  by  Michabo, 
their  spirit  of  the  dawn.* 

With  the  Dakotas  no  one  escaped  the  deluge,  and 

1  Bancroft,  V:  14. 

2  Bancroft,    V:  15. 

3  "Nineteenth  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  261. 

4  "Myths,"   p.   235. 


334  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

this  was  also  the  belief  of  the  Nicaraguans  and  the 
Botocudos  of  Brazil.1 

The  myth  of  the  Ascochimi  of  California  tells  us  that 
no  one  escaped  the  flood,  but  that  after  the  waters  had 
assuaged  the  Coyote  planted  the  feathers  of  various 
kinds  of  birds  from  which  sprang  the  various  races  of 
men.2 

And,  according  to  the  Navajos  and  a  tradition  of  the 
Aztecs,  the  antediluvians  were  changed  into  birds,  and 
so  escaped  the  cataclysm.3 

The  peculiarities  of  these  myths,  both  in  general  form 
and  detail,  make  it  wholly  impossible,  though  their  au 
thenticity  is  not  questioned,  to  prove  that  they  relate  to 
the  great  deluge  described  by  Moses;  indeed,  it  is  far 
more  probable  that  these  accounts  are  either  wholly 
mythical,  or  else  that  they  have  been  suggested  by  local 
inundations.  Such  floods  are  common  in  the  American 
river  valleys  and  could  not  have  failed  to  make  a  deep 
impression  on  the  uncultivated  minds  affected  by  them. 
This,  after  all,  may  be  the  true  explanation  of  the  flood 
myths  so  common  among  American  tribes.4 

But,  even  if  it  were  true  that  some  of  the  flood  myths 
of  America  relate  to  the  Biblical  deluge,  they,  with  hardly 
a  variation,  present  one  feature  which  puts  them  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  account  of  the  migration  of  the  Jared- 
ites  as  given  in  the  Book  of  Mormon.  According  to  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  the  people  who  came  here  from  Babel 
were  all  destroyed  about  600  B.  C,  with  the  exception  of 
two  men,  Coriantumr  and  Ether,  and  what  became  of 
them  we  are  not  informed;  according  to  these  myths  the 

1  "Myths,"  p.  235. 

2  "Myths,"    p.    235. 
8  "Myths,"   p.   240. 

*  "North  Americans  of  Yesterday,"  p.  407. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  335 

people  who  escaped  the  flood  were  not  destroyed,  but 
continued  down  to  the  discovery  of  the  continent  in  1492. 

Thus,  the  Quiche  myth  given  by  Mr.  Etzenhouser 
has  the  ancestors  of  that  tribe  come  across  great  tracts 
of  land  and  water  from  the  East.  Now,  if  the  Book  of 
Mormon  is  true,  there  was  not  a  tribe  living  on  the 
continent  when  it  was  discovered  by  Columbus,  whose 
ancestors  came  direct  from  the  Tower  of  Babel,  so  the 
ancestors  of  the  Quiches  could  not  have  been  the  Jared- 
ites,  and  this  tradition  does  not  prove  what  Elder  Etzen 
houser  would  like  to  have  us  believe. 

Ixtlilxochitl's  Toltec  tradition  also  would  not  prove 
what  Mormon  writers  tell  us,  even  if  its  authenticity 
were  undoubtedly  established,  for  it  makes  the  Toltecs 
come  to  America  520  years  after  the  flood,  and  we  know 
that  they  were  here  as  late  as  the  tenth  century  A.  D. 
On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Stebbins  and  others  try  to  make  us 
believe  that  the  Toltecs  were  the  Nephites,  who  did  not 
come  from  the  Tower  of  Babel  at  all. 

The  Tzendal  tradition  of  Votan  and  his  coming  also 
fails,  and  for  the  same  reason,  for  the  Votanese  were  not 
exterminated  six  centuries  before  Christ,  but  continued 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Discovery  and  are  represented 
to-day  by  tine  Mayas  of  Yucatan. 

And  the  people  who  came  from  the  "seven  caves" 
were  not  all  exterminated  before  the  beginning  of  our 
era,  but  were  the  ancestors  of  the  historic  Maya  and 
Nahua  tribes  of  Central  America  and  Mexico. 

As  these  myths  make  the  tribes  who  dwelt  here  in 
1492  the  direct  descendants  of  those  who  are  said  to  have 
escaped  from  the  flood  or  floods,  they  oppose,  rather 
than  sustain,  the  Book  of  Mormon  claim  that  the  first 
inhabitants  of  the  New  World  were  the  Jaredites,  who 
were  exterminated  600  B.  C. 


336  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

2.  Did  Ancient  American  Civilization  Come  from 
Palestine? 

The  Book  of  Mormon  asserts  that  temples  and  syna 
gogues,  similar  to  those  of  Palestine,  were  erected  by  the 
Nephites  in  both  South  and  North  America.  No  sooner 
had  they  become  settled  in  Peru,  we  are  told,  than  they 
built  a  temple  like  the  temple  of  Solomon.  "And  I, 
Nephi,  did  build  a  temple;  and  I  did  construct  it  after 
the  manner  of  the  temple  of  Solomon,  save  it  were  not 
built  of  so  many  precious  things :  for  they  were  not  to 
be  found  upon  the  land;  wherefore,  it  could  not  have 
been  built  like  unto  Solomon's  temple.  But  the  manner 
of  construction  was  like  unto  the  temple  of  Solomon ; 
and  the  workmanship  thereof  was  exceeding  fine." — 2 
Nephi,  4:3.  And,  after  the  Nephites  had  spread  into 
the  land  northward,  we  are  told  further  they  built  "tem 
ples,"  "synagogues"  and  "sanctuaries." 

But,  turning  to  the  monuments  of  the  country,  we 
find  nothing  to  sustain  the  theory  that  a  Jewish  civiliza 
tion  once  existed  on  the  American  continent.  The  an 
cient  Americans  built  large  and  imposing  structures,  but 
their  architectural  types  were  peculiar  to  themselves, 
very  different  from  the  architectural  types  of  the  ancient 
nations  of  the  Old  World.  "There  is  nothing  in  any  of 
the  remains,  so  far  developed,"  says  Dellenbaugh,  "that 
indicates  foreign  influence,  prior  to  the  Discovery.  Every 
architectural  work  on  the  continent  is  purely  Amerindian 
or  modified  by  contact  with  other  races  subsequent  to 
1492." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  247. 

The  Jews  were  not  adepts  in  architecture.  With 
them  building  "was  always  kept  within  the  limits  of  a 
mechanical  craft,  and  never  rose  to  the  rank  of  a  fine 
art."  When  they  returned  from  Egyptian  captivity  they 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


337 


occupied  the  houses  of  the  former  inhabitants  of  Pales 
tine,  and,  afterwards,  whenever  they  attempted  anything 
in  the  line  of  architecture  on  a-  grand  scale,  as  in  the  case 
of  David's  palace  and  Solomon's  temple,  they  employed 
Phoenician  artists.  On  account  of  the  decadence  of  their 
remains  little  is  known  of  the  architecture  of  their 
earlier  days.  There  is  sufficient  evidence  on  hand,  how 
ever,  Biblical  and  archaeological,  for  us  to  say  that  ordi 
narily  the  structures  were  of  stone  or  sun-dried  brick, 
and  that  they  were  erected  with  the  design  of  utility  and 
not  beauty.  In  later  times  the  chief  distinguishing  fea 
tures  of  their  dwelling-houses  were  plain,  bare  walls, 
sometimes  rising  to  two  or  more  stories  in  height;  flat 
roofs;  apartments  arranged  around  a  court  or  around 
courts;  small  windows  which  mostly  faced  the  interior 
courts,  and  usually  low  doors  which  swung  in  sockets. 

While  in  general  principles  all  buildings  are  con 
structed  alike,  there  is  nothing  specifically  Jewish  about 
American  architecture,  nor  anything  that  would  indicate 
that  the  culture  of  ancient  America  had  been  influenced 
by  Jewish  ideas. 

Brinton  sums  up  the  chief  features  of  Peruvian 
architecture  as  "cyclopean  walls  fitted  together  without 
mortar;  structures  of  several  stories  in  height,  not 
erected  upon  tumuli  or  pyramids ;  the  doors  narrowing 
in  breadth  toward  the  top;  the  absence  of  pillars  or 
arches ;  the  avoidance  of  exterior  and  mural  decoration ; 
the  artistic  disposition  of  niches  in  the  walls,  and  the 
extreme  solidity  of  the  foundations." 

None  of  these  features  are  specifically  Jewish,  while 
many  of  them  are  strikingly  un- Jewish.  The  Jews  fitted 
together  the  stones  of  their  buildings  with  mortar ;  the 
Peruvians  laid  theirs  up  without,  although  they  used  a 
very  hard  stucco  with  which  to  plaster  the  outside.  The 


338  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

roofs  of  Palestine  were  flat;  those  of  Peru  were  bell- 
shaped.1  The  door  of  the  Jewish  house  was  rectangu 
lar  in  shape;  that  of  the  Peruvians  was  wider  at  the 
bottom  than  at  the  top.  And  the  Jews,  without  doubt, 
understood  the  principle  of  the  arch,  while  "the  Peru 
vian  architects  were  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  true 
principle  of  the  circular  arch  reposing  on  its  keystone." 
— Conquest  of  Peru,  Vol.  i.,  p.  96. 

Here,  then,  in  a  section  of  America  where,  above  all 
other  sections,  we  should  find  evidences  of  the  Jewish 
civilization  of  the  ancient  inhabitants,  we  find  a  number 
of  fundamental  architectural  features  that  are  strikingly 
un-Jewish. 

Passing  into  Central  America  and  Mexico  we  find  as 
great  a  lack  of  Jewish  architectural  features  as  in  Peru. 
The  temples  of  these  countries  were  as  different  from 
the  temple  of  Solomon  and  the  Jewish  synagogues  as  a 
lighthouse  is  from  the  Mosque  of  Omar. 

First,  the  temples  of  this  region  differed  from  the 
Jewish  temple  in  position.  They  were  built  upon  arti 
ficial,  truncated  pyramids  whose  sides  were  faced  with 
stone  slabs  and  whose  summits  were  reached  by  flights 
of  stone  steps. 

Second,  they  differed  from  it  in  arrangement.  The 
Jewish  temple  had  its  courts,  its  holy  place  and  its  holy 
of  holies,  but  no  such  arrangement  appears  in  the  tem 
ples  of  Yucatan  and  Mexico.  The  ground  plans  of  Jew 
ish  and  American  temples  were  entirely  different. 

Third,  they  differed  from  it  in  adornment.  The 
Yucatec  and  Mexican  temples  were  often  adorned  with 
the  most  hideous,  heathenish,  grotesque  and  obscene 
devices.  Besides,  their  walls  were  often  inscribed  with 


1  "Conquest  of  Peru,"  Vol.   I.,  p.  95. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


339 


hieroglyphics  so  different  from  Hebrew  characters  as  in 
themselves   to   nullify   the  theory   that   these   structures 


FIGURE  ii. 

i   GROUND  PLAN  "TEMPLE  OF  THE  THREE  TABLETS." 
2.  GROUND  PLAN  "TEMPLE  OF  THE  SUN."  PALENQUE. 

were  reared  by  a  people  whose  ancestors  had  come  from 
the  Holy  Land. 

And,  fourth,  they  differed   from  it  in  design,  being 
the  shrines  of  heathen  gods  and  the  places  where  human, 


340  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

not  animal,  sacrifices  were  offered  up,  as  is  evidenced  by 
the  shape  of  the  altars  found  in  or  near  them. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  of  structures  more 
different  from  one  another  in  arrangement,  adornment, 
construction  and  design  than  those  of  Central  America 
and  Mexico  and  Palestine. 

Moving  up  into  the  Mississippi  Valley,  we  still  look 
in  vain  for  evidences  of  a  prehistoric  Jewish  civilization. 
The  Mound  Builders  used  perishable  materials  entirely 
in  the  construction  of  their  buildings,  cut  stone  and 
mortar  being  wholly  unknown  to  them.  They  erected 
their  structures  upon  great  piles  of  earth.  They  worked 
their  metals  in  a  cold  state  and  did  not  know  how  to 
manufacture  iron  and  steel  tools.  They  had  no  beasts  of 
burden.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  Oriental  cereals,  and 
they  had  no  system  of  hieroglyphical  writing. 

These  facts  plainly  refute  the  Book  of  Mormon 
claim  that  a  civilization  of  Jewish  origin,  planted  in 
Peru,  spread  throughout  both  Americas  in  ancient  times. 

3.  Did  Ancient  American  Civilisation  Come  from 
Egypt? 

The  Book  of  Mormon  asserts  that  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  employed  a  system  of  writing  known  among  them  as 
the  "Reformed  Egyptian,"  and  in  support  of  this  certain 
resemblances  in  the  arts  and  customs  of  the  American 
tribes  to  those  of  Egypt  are  presented. 

Apostle  W.  W.  Blair  writes:  "The  ancient  Nephites 
and  Zarahemlaites  were,  no  doubt,  not  only  acquainted 
with  the  language,  but  also  with  much  about  the  habits, 
customs,  arts  and  sciences  peculiar  to  Egypt;  for  the 
Israelites,  in  all  their  history  from  Abraham  to  King 
Zedekiah,  and  afterwards,  had  direct  and  intimate  inter 
course  with  the  Egyptians.  Therefore  it  is  not  strange 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  341 

that  we  find  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Dela- 
field,  these  evidences  of  Egyptian  art  and  manners,  espe 
cially  that  of  hieroglyphic  writing.  In  conclusion  upon 
this  point  we  have  only  to  say  that  the  claim  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  America  were 
skilled  in  Egyptian  language,  is  now  fully  vindicated. 
And  here  we  have  another  unanswerable  proof  of  the 
truth  of  that  book." — Joseph  the  Seer,  p.  162. 

But  Mr.  Blair,  who,  at  the  time  this  was  written,  was 
one  of  the  chief  polemics  in  the  Reorganized  Mormon 
Church,  and  who  was  a  writer  of  more  than  ordinary 
ability,  falls  into  the  grievous  error,  altogether  too 
common  among  Mormon  writers,  of  following  an  in 
vestigator  whose  theory  hardly  outlived  his  day.  This 
investigator  is  Mr.  John  Delafield,  whose  work,  "An 
Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of  the  Antiquities  of  America," 
was  published  in  Cincinnati  in  1839. 

While  it  is  true  that  in  some  respects  the  culture  of 
the  ancient  Americans  was  like  that  of  Egypt,  it  is 
equally  true  that  in  others  it  was  like  that  of  China, 
Polynesia,  India,  Phoenicia  and  Greece,  and,  if  this 
proves  that  it  was  derived  from  one,  it  proves  that  it 
was  derived  from  all  these  nations.  In  citing  analogies 
as  the  proof  of  a  theory  plenty  of  room  must  be  allowed 
for  accident  and  human  instinct.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult 
to  understand  how,  on  natural  grounds,  the  American 
nations  could  have  avoided  living  in  some  respects  like 
the  other  nations  of  the  world,  unless  they  had  not  lived 
at  all.  Men  build  shelters  for  themselves,  and  do  hun 
dreds  of  other  things  by  instinct,  and  a  likeness  in  these 
respects  can  not  prove  relationship.  It  is  only  when  the 
resemblances  pointed  out  are  numerous  and  striking  that 
they  deserve  serious  attention.  And  right  here  is  where 
the  evidences  presented  by  Delafield  and  Blair  fail.  They 


342  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

are  neither  more  numerous  nor  more  striking  than  those 
presented  to  prove  the  Mongolian,  Polynesian  or  Phoeni 
cian  derivation  theories.  On  the  Egyptian  analogies 
cited  Bancroft  remarks:  "Few  of  these  analogies  will, 
however,  bear  close  investigation,  and  even  where  they 
will  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  prove  anything." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  55. 

Delafield  arranges  the  various  Egyptian  analogies 
under  seven  heads,  as  follows : 

"I.  Philological,     The  various  analogies  in  language. 

"II.  Anatomical.  The  peculiar  craniological  forma 
tion  common  to  those  countries,  as  asserted  by  Dr. 
Warren. 

"III.  Mythological.  The  existence  of  two  peculiar 
modes  of  worship,  addressed  to  two  deities ;  one  san 
guinary,  the  other  peaceful.  .  .  . 

"IV.  Hieroglyphic.  The  use  of  three  peculiar  systems 
of  hieroglyphic  writing  of  the  Egyptians. 

"V.  Astronomical.  I.  Identity  in  the  division  of  the 
year,  month  and  week,  and  the  calculations  thereof.  2. 
Identity  in  the  use  of  intercalary  days.  3.  Identity  in 
zodiacal  signs. 

"VI.  Architectural,  i.  Identity  in  sepulchral  tumuli 
(mounds  for  burial).  2.  Identity  in  pyramidal  temples. 
3.  In  the  uses  of  these  temples.  4.  In  the  mechanical 
power  which  enabled  them  to  move  masses  that  no  other 
races  have  ever  accomplished.  5.  Their  use  of  hiero 
glyphic  sculpture  on  all  their  sacred  buildings.  6.  Simi 
larity  in  zodiacal  and  planispheric  carvings.  7.  Identity 
in  sepulchral  ornaments. 

"VII.  Identity  in  practice  of  embalming  and  preser 
vation  of  the  royal  corpses."  Quoted  in  "Joseph  the 
Seer,"  p.  162. 

Mr.  Blair  employs  this  quotation  to  prove  one  thing: 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  343 

That  the  ancient  Americans  were  familiar  with,  and 
practiced,  some  of  the  arts  of  ancient  Egypt.  The 
people  themselves,  he  tells  us,  came  from  Jerusalem  and 
were  of  the  stock  of  Abraham.  Let  us  now  take  up  these 
analogies,  one  by  one,  and  examine  them  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  just  how  far  they  go  to  prove  his  theory, 
i.  We  begin  with  the  supposed  analogies  between  the 
spoken  languages  of  America  and  Egypt.  These  have 
proved  to  Delafield  that  ancient  American  culture  was 
influenced  by  Egyptian  civilization,  just  as  similar  anal 
ogies  have  proved  to  Adair  that  the  American  Indians 
came  originally  from  Palestine,  and  to  Lang  that  they 
came  from  Polynesia.  But  in  both  their  grammatical 
structure  and  etymology  the  American  languages  differ 
widely  from  the  Egyptian.  The  fact  that  such  competent 
philologists  as  Duponceau,  Gallatin,  Hayden,  Brinton 
and  Powell,  men  whose  scholarship  and  competency  can 
not  be  questioned,  throw  overboard  all  such  theories  is 
a  sufficient  answer  to  the  absurd  claim  of  Apostle  Blair 
that  "the  ancient  inhabitants  of  America  were  skilled  in 
Egyptian  language."  These  authorities  tell  us  that  our 
native  tongues  all  bear  the  indisputable  stamp  of  indig- 
enousness.  Duponceau,  as  early  as  1819,  declared  that 
the  American  grammatical  forms  "differ  essentially  from 
those  of  the  ancient  and  modern  languages  of  the  old 
hemisphere."  Gallatin  says  that  "they  bear  the  impress 
of  primitive  languages,  and  assumed  their  form  from 
natural  causes,  and  afford  no  proof  of  their  being  de 
rived  from  a  nation  in  a  more  advanced  state  of  civiliza 
tion."  Hayden  tells  us  that  "no  theories  of  derivation 
from  the  Old  World  have  stood  the  test  of  grammatical 
construction."  Brinton  states  that  their  common  charac 
teristics  are  "sufficient  to  place  them  in  a  linguistic  class 
by  themselves."  And  Powell  declares  that  "the  Indian 


344  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

tongues  belong  to  a  very  low  type  of  organization."  As 
the  Egyptian  was  an  advanced  form  of  speech,  it  may 
be  said  without  reserve  that  the  American  tongues  were 
not  derived  from  it.  Apostle  Blair's  witness,  Delafield, 
is  a  theorist  with  but  a  poor  reputation  as  an  authority ; 
Duponceau,  Gallatin,  Hayden,  Brinton  and  Powell,  on 
the  contrary,  are  acknowledged  authorities  on  the  sub 
ject  of  American  philology. 

2.  The  anatomical  similarity  cited  proves  nothing  in 
regard  to   the   origin   of   ancient   American   civilization, 
and,  as  Mr.  Blair  and  his  church  contend  that  the  ancient 
Americans  were  of  Jewish  descent,  if  it  were  established 
it  would  act  rather  as  an  argument  against  than  an  argu 
ment  for  the  book  that  he  seeks  to  prove  divine.    It  may 
be  well  to  say,  however,  that  American  craniology  offers 
no  support  whatever  to  any  of  the  derivation  theories, 
for,  instead  of  there  being  only  one  type  of  skull  on  the 
continent,  we  find  many  types,  so  that  while  the  crania 
of  one  locality  might  approximate  to  the  Egyptian  type, 
the  crania  of  another  locality  might  approximate  to  the 
German  type.     Moorehead  tells   us  that  the  crania  of 
Ohio  are,  in  some  instances,  as  wide  apart  as  the  Cauca 
sian  and  the  Ethiopian. 

3.  The  mythological  similarity  mentioned  is  also  cer 
tainly  erroneous.     I  have  failed  to  find  that  either  the 
Egyptians    or   the    Americans    had    just    "two    peculiar 
modes  of  worship,  addressed  to  two  deities,;  one   san 
guinary,  the  other  peaceful."  While  it  is  true  that  among 
the  Aztecs  a  god  of  war  was  worshiped,  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  one  of  the  gods  of  ancient  Egypt  was  exclu 
sively  a  god  of  war.    The  gods  and  goddesses  worshiped 
at   Memphis   were    Ptah,    "Father   of   the    Beginning;" 
Pakht,   the   cat-headed   goddess;    Nefer   Atum,    son   of 
Ptah  and  sun  of  the  underworld ;  Seb,  god  of  earth  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  345 

vegetation;  Nut,  wife  of  Seb ;  Osiris,  son  of  Seb,  the 
good  principle;  Isis,  wife  of  Osiris;  Horus,  the  strong 
young  sun  of  the  day;  Athor;  Set,  the  principle  of  phy 
sical  and  moral  darkness ;  Nephthys,  goddess  of  the 
dead ;  Apis,  the  sacred  bull ;  Serapis ;  Ra,  the  "victorious 
principle  of  light,  life  and  right;"  Mentu,  Ra  as  the 
rising  sun ;  Atmu,  Ra  as  the  setting  sun ;  and  Shu,  the 
solar  light.  Those  of  Thebes  were  Ammon,  the  god  of 
productivity;  Mut,  goddess  of  womanhood;  Khuns,  son 
of  Ammon  and  Mut  and  divinity  of  the  moon;  Neph, 
soul  of  the  universe;  Khem,  the  energizing  principle  of 
physical  life;  Neith,  mother  of  the  sun;  Mat,  goddess  of 
truth;  Thoth,  the  moon-god;  and  Anubis,  the  guide  of 
ghosts.  (Gayley's  "Classic  Myths,"  pp.  504,  505.)  All 
these  gods  and  goddesses  received  adoration  in  their 
particular  cities,  and  it  is  certainly  erroneous  to  claim 
that  in  Egypt  there  were  just  two  modes  of  worship 
addressed  to  two  deities,  one  sanguinary  and  the  other 
"peaceful."  This  claim  is  likewise  unsupported  in  Amer 
ica.  The  less-advanced  tribes  knew  no  such  distinction 
in  their  worship,  their  gods  being  gods  of  war  on  one 
occasion  and  gods  of  peace  on  another.  If  such  a  dis 
tinction  existed,  we  certainly  should  find  it  in  Mexico, 
but  even  there  it  does  not  appear.  The  Aztecs  wor 
shiped  Tezcatlipoca,  their  chief  divinity;  Quetzalcoatl, 
their  god  of  the  air;  Tlaloc,  their  god  of  rain;  Huitzilo- 
pochtli,  their  terrible  go4  of  war;  Xuihtecutli,  their  god 
of  fire ;  Mixcoatl,  their  god  of  hunting  and  thunder,  and 
hundreds  of  lesser  divinities.  It  has  been  believed  by 
some  that  they  worshiped  an  invisible  god,  Teotl,  but 
this  is  denied  by  others,  and  Brinton  declares  that  this 
term  only  expresses  in  its  most  general  form  the  idea  of 
the  supernatural.  It  appears  upon  comparison  that  the 
religious  system  of  America  was  very  much  inferior  to 


346  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

that  of  Egypt.  Nadaillac  states  that  the  polytheism 
which  existed  in  America  was  "a  very  inferior  polythe 
ism  ...  to  that,  for  instance,  which  history  records 
among  the  Egyptians  or  the  Greeks."  While  Gallatin 
says  that  " viewed  only  as  a  development  of  the  intellec 
tual  faculties  of  man,  it  is,  in  every  respect,  vastly  in 
ferior  to  the  religious  systems  of  Egypt,  India,  Greece 
or  Scandinavia."  But  just  how  it  would  help  the  case 
of  Mr.  Blair,  even  if  it  were  proved  that  the  ancient 
Americans  and  the  ancient  Egyptians  had  two  such 
modes  of  worship,  he  does  not  make  plain.  The  Book 
of  Mormon  does  not  inform  us  that  the  Nephites  prac 
ticed  any  of  the  distinctive  ceremonies  or  held  any  of  the 
distinctive  beliefs  of  the  Egyptian  religion,  but  asserts 
that  at  first  they  were  Jews  and  afterwards  Christians. 
So,  if  it  should  be  shown  that  in  their  religion  the 
ancient  Americans  were  similar  to  the  people  of  ancient 
Egypt,  it  would  prove  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  is  false 
in  its  teachings  on  this  point. 

4.  The  hieroglyphics,  next,  claim  our  attention.  Mr. 
Blair  says :  "Now  when  we  find  by  testimony  outside  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
America  possessed  a  knowledge  of  Egyptian  hieroglyph 
ics  and  sculpturing  and  architecture,  we  have  another 
strong  evidence  of  the  divinity  of  that  book." — Joseph 
the  Seer,  p.  161.  But  where  does  he  find  this  evidence? 
In  Delafield's  book.  And  Baacroft,  speaking  of  this 
author's  evidence  adduced  in  support  of  the  assertion 
that  the  ancient  Americans  used  Egyptian  hieroglyphics, 
says:  "Delafield,  it  is  true,  discerns  a  distinct  analogy 
between  the  hieroglyphs  of  Egypt  and  America.  And 
the  evidence  he  adduces  is  absurd  enough." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  61.  There  is  one  fact  that  disproves 
this  theory :  No  Egyptologist  has  ever  been  able  to  trans- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


347 


late  the  inscriptions  on  the  monuments  of  America;  they 
are  a  sealed  book  and  can  not  be  opened  by  the  same  key 
that  has  unlocked  the  literary  treasures  of  ancient  Egypt. 
To  prove  that  the  hieroglyphics  of  America  and  Egypt 
are  entirely  distinct  from  each  other,  I  submit  the  fol 
lowing  quotations  from  authorities  on  the  question. 

"If  there  were  any  hope  of  evidence  that  the  civilized 
peoples  of  America  were  descendants,  or  derived  any  of 
their  culture  from  the  ancient  Egyptians,  we  might 
surely  look  for  such  proof  in  their  hieroglyphics.  Yet 
we  look  in  vain.  To  the  most  expert  decipherer  of 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  the  inscriptions  at  Palenque  are 
a  blank  and  unreadable  mystery,  and  they  will  perhaps 
ever  remain  so." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  61. 

"The  two  countries  were  entirely  different  ...  in 
their  written  characters." — Ancient  America,  p.  183. 

"The  hieroglyphics  are  too  few  on  American  build 
ings  to  authorize  any  decisive  inference.  On  comparing 
them,  however,  with  those  of  the  Dresden  codex,  prob 
ably  from  this  same  quarter  of  the  country,  with  those 
on  the  monuments  of  Xochicalco,  and  with  the  ruder 
picture-writing  of  the  Aztecs,  it  is  not  easy  to  discern 
anything  which  indicates  a  common  system.  Still  less 
obvious  is  the  resemblance  to  the  Egyptian  characters, 
whose  refined  and  delicate  abbreviations  approach  al 
most  to  the  simplicity  of  an  alphabet." — Conquest  of 
Mexico,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  409,  410. 

"Notwithstanding  the  oft-repeated  assertion  that  a 
resemblance  between  Egyptian  and  Maya  hieroglyphics 
exists,  no  one  of  the  Egyptologists  so  successful  in  their 
chosen  field  has  been  able  to  decipher  the  Maya  writ 
ing." — North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  418. 

"So  far  as  now" — 1900  A.  D. — "understood,  there  is 
no  relationship  between  any  kind  of  Amerindian  writing 


348  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

and  that  of  other  races.  Like  everything  else  pertaining 
to  the  Amerind  people,  the  development  appears  to  have 
been  purely  indigenous." — North  Americans  of  Yester 
day,  p.  80. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  brought  out  in  these  quota 
tions,  it  appears  that  the  claim  that  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  used  "Reformed  Egyptian"  will  not  stand  before 
archaeological  research. 

5.  The  assertion  that  the  Egyptians  and  the  Ameri 
cans  were  alike  in  their  astronomical  systems  is  also  false. 
Delafield  tells  us  that  this  likeness  consisted  in:  "i.  Iden 
tity  in  the  division  of  the  year,  month  and  week,  and  the 
calculations  thereof.  2.  Identity  in  the  use  of  intercalary 
days.  3.  Identity  in  zodiacal  signs."  But  a  brief  com 
parison  of  the  calendar  systems  of  the  two  countries  will 
show  that  there  is  little  upon  which  to  base  his  claim. 

The  Egyptian  day  began  at  midnight  and  was  com 
posed  of  twenty- four  hours.  Their  week,  according  to 
Dio  Cassius,  began  on  Saturday.  Their  months  were 
lunar  months  of  thirty  days  each.  Twelve  of  these  with 
five  supplementary  days  added  made  a  vague  year.  As 
a  quarter  of  a  day  was  lost  each  year,  the  reckoning  went 
back  a  day  every  four  years,  which  resulted  in  a  revolu 
tion  of  the  seasons  in  every  1,461  years.1  Their  solar 
year  began  with  the  autumnal  equinox.2 

On  the  method  of  computing  time  among  the  Peru 
vians,  Prescott  writes :  "They  divided  the  year  into 
twelve  lunar  months,  each  of  which,  having  its  own 
name,  was  distinguished  bv  its  appropriate  festival. 
They  had  also  weeks ;  but  of  what  length,  whether  of 
seven,  nine  or  ten  days,  is  uncertain.  As  their  lunar  year 
would  necessarily  fall  short  of  the  true  time,  they  rec- 

1  "Encyclopedia   Britannica,"   article   "Calendar." 

2  "International    Encyclopedia,"    article    "Calendar." 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  349 

tified  their  calendar  by  solar  observations  made  by  means 
of  a  number  of  cylindrical  columns  raised  on  the  high 
lands  round  Cuzco,  which  served  them  for  taking  azi 
muths;  and,  by  measuring  their  shadows,  they  ascer 
tained  the  exact  times  of  the  solstices.  .  .  .  The  year 
itself  took  its  departure  from  the  date  of  the  winter 
solstice." — Conquest  of  Peru,  Vol.  L,  p.  77. 

The  only  similarity  here  to  the  Egyptian  system  is  in 
the  lunar  month,  and  this  proves  nothing,  as  all  unciv 
ilized  men  have  reckoned  by  this  division  of  time.  Let 
the  reader  observe  that  while  the  solar  year  of  the  Egyp 
tians  began  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  the  year  of  the 
Peruvians  began  at  the  winter  solstice. 

Among  the  Aztecs  the  day  was  divided  into  four 
parts,  morning,  noon,  evening  and  midnight;  five  days 
composed  a  week,  the  last  day  of  which  was  devoted  to 
marketing  and  pleasure;  four  weeks  made  a  month; 
eighteen  months,  plus  five  intercalary  days,  made  a  civil 
year;  thirteen  civil  years  composed  a  "knot;"  four 
"knots"  made  a  "cycle;"  and  two  "cycles"  an  "age"  of 
104  years.  At  the  end  of  each  cycle  of  fifty-two  years 
thirteen  days  were  added  to  make  up  for  the  one-quarter 
day  lost  each  year.  Just  when  the  year  began  is  not 
certain,  as  authorities  differ,  giving  January  9 ;  February 
i,  2,  24  and  26;  March  I  and  April  I  as  the  Aztec  new 
year.  The  five  intercalary  days  that  were  added  each 
year  were  called  nemontemi,  or  unlucky  days,  and  chil 
dren  born  and  enterprises  undertaken  upon  them  were 
considered  unlucky.  The  Aztecs  had  also  a  ritual  calen 
dar,  of  which  Bancroft  says:  "The  year  contained  as 
many  days  as  the  solar  calendar,  but  they  were  divided 
into  entirely  different  periods.  Thus,  in  reality  there 
were  no  months  at  all,  but  only  twenty  weeks  of  thirteen 
days  each;  and  these  not  constituting  a  full  year,  the 


350  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

same  kind  of  reckoning  was  continued  for  105  days 
more,  and  at  the  end  of  a  tlalpilli" — their  "knot"  or 
period  of  fifty-two  years — "thirteen  days  were  inter 
calated  to  make  up  for  the  lost  days." — Native  Races, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  515. 

The  Maya  year  was  practically  the  same  as  the  Mexi 
can,  differing  from  it  only  in  its  names.  It  consisted  of 
eighteen  months  of  twenty  days  each  and  began  on  a 
date  corresponding  to  our  July  16.  Besides  this  manner 
of  reckoning  time,  the  Mayas  had  another,  according  to 
which  their  year  was  divided  into  twenty-eight  periods 
of  thirteen  days  each. 

Among  the  Muyscas  the  day  was  divided  into  four 
parts,  three  days  made  a  week,  ten  weeks  a  lunation  or 
suna,  twelve  sunas  composed  a  rural  year,  twenty  sunas 
a  civil  year  and  thirty-seven  sunas  a  ritual  year. 

The  reader,  by  comparing  the  calendar  systems  of 
Egypt  and  America,  will  discover  that  they  are  unlike  in 
so  many  particulars  and  alike  in  so  few  that  the  asser 
tion  that  that  of  the  latter  country  was  derived  from  that 
of  the  former  can  not  be  credited.  The  only  similarities 
that  are  sufficiently  pronounced  to  attract  attention  are 
the  lunar  months  observed  by  the  Egyptians  and  the 
tribes  of  America  and  the  practice  of  the  intercalation 
of  five  days  on  to  the  end  of  the  twelve  lunar  months  to 
make  the  year  365  days  long.  Yet,  as  there  are  so  many 
discrepancies  between  the  two  systems,  and  as  these 
points  of  similarity  can  be  satisfactorily  explained  on 
natural  grounds,  it  is  absurd  to  try  to  prove  by  them 
that  the  culture  of  ancient  America  was  derived  in  part 
from  Egypt. 

Delafield  claims,  further,  that  there  is  an  identity  in 
the  zodiacal  signs  of  the  two  countries.  But  this  is  also 
false.  The  zodiacal  signs  of.  Egypt  were  twelve  in  mini- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  351 

ber:  the  Fleece,  two  Sprouting  Plants,  the  Beetle,  the 
Knife,  the  Mountain  of  the  Sun,  the  Serpent,  the  Arrow, 
the  Mirror,  Water,  the  Bull,  the  Virgin  and  the  Fishes. 
The  day  signs  of  the  Aztecs  were  twenty  in  number: 
the  Swordfish,  the  Wind,  the  House,  the  Lizard,  the 
Snake,  Death,  the  Deer,  the  Rabbit,  W7ater,  the  Dog,  the 
Monkey,  Brushwood,  the  Cane,  the  Tiger,  the  Eagle,  the 
Vulture,  Movement,  the  Flint,  Rain  and  the  Flower.1 
Of  these  signs  but  two  can  truthfully  be  said  to  be 
common  to  both  countries.  They  are  the  Serpent  and 
Water.  The  Sprouting  Plant  of  Egypt  may  faintly  sug 
gest  the  Cane  of  America  and  the  Arrow  the  Flint.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  the  Mexican  sign,  interpreted  to  be 
the  Swordfish,  was  intended  for  that  monster  or  for 
some  other ;  it  certainly  bears  no  resemblance  to  a  fish, 
therefore  none  to  the  sign  Fishes  of  the  Egyptian  zodiac. 
The  rest  of  the  signs  are  entirely  different.  There  is  a 
closer  correspondence  between  the  zodiacal  signs  of  east 
ern  Asia  and  those  of  America  than  there  is  between 
those  of  Egypt  and  America.  The  "Britannica  Encyclo 
pedia"  (Art.  "Zodiac")  says:  "A  large  detachment  of 
the  'cyclical  animals'  even  found  its  way  to  the  New 
World.  Seven  of  the  twenty  days  constituting  the  Aztec 
month  bore  names  evidently  borrowed  from  those  of  the 
Chinese  horary  signs.  The  Hare  (or  Rabbit),  Monkey, 
Dog  and  Serpent  reappeared  without  change;  for  the 
Tiger,  Crocodile  and  Hen,  unknown  in  America,  the 
Ocelot,  Lizard  and  Eagle  were  substituted  as  analogous." 
So,  if  a  similarity  of  zodiacal  signs  proves  anything,  it 
proves  that  the  Aztec  civilization  came  from  China  in 
place  of  Egypt. 

6.  It  is  asserted  that  the  architecture  of  America  cor- 

1  "Encyclopedia    Britannica,"    article    "Zodiac." 


352  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

responded  to  that  of  Egypt  in  certain  particulars.  These 
are  stated  by  Delafield  as:  "i.  Identity  in  sepulchral 
tumuli  (mounds  for  burial).  2.  Identity  in  pyramidal 
temples.  3.  In  the  uses  of  these  temples.  4.  In  the 
mechanical  power  which  enabled  them  to  move  masses 
that  no  other  races  have  ever  accomplished.  5.  Their 
use  of  hieroglyphic  sculpture  on  all  their  sacred  build 
ings.  6.  Similarity  in  zodiacal  and  planispheric  carvings. 
7.  Identity  in  sepulchral  ornaments." 

Without  comment  I  put  in  opposition  to  this  sum 
mary  of  architectural  analogies  the  following  quotations 
from  other  and  better  authorities : 

"The  Palenque  architecture  has  little  to  remind  us  of 
the  Egyptian  or  the  Oriental." — Conquest  of  Mexico, 
Vol.  III.,  p.  407. 

"It  may  be,  as  he" — De  Bourbourg — "says,  that  for 
every  pyramid  in  Egypt  there  are  a  thousand  in  Mexico 
and  Central  America,  but  the  ruins  in  Egypt  and  those 
in  America  have  nothing  in  common.  The  two  countries 
were  entirely  different  in  their  language,  in  their  styles 
of  architecture,  in  their  written  characters,  and  in  the 
physical  characteristics  of  their  earliest  people,  as  they 
are  seen  sculptured  or  painted  on  the  monuments.  An 
Egyptian  pyramid  is  no  more  the  same  thing  as  a  Mexi 
can  pyramid  than  a  Chinese  pagoda  is  the  same  thing  as 
an  English  lighthouse.  It  was  not  made  in  the  same 
way,  nor  for  the  same  uses.  The  ruined  monuments 
show,  in  generals  and  in  particulars,  that  the  original 
civilizers  in  America  were  profoundly  different  from  the 
ancient  Egyptians.  The  two  peoples  can  not  explain 
each  other." — Ancient  America,  p.  183. 

"There  are  those  who,  in  the  truncated  pyramids,  see 
evidences  of  Egyptian  origin.  The  pyramids,  like  the 
temple  mounds,  were  used  for  sepulchres;  but  here  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  353 

analogy  ends.  The  Mound  Builders  burned  the  bodies 
of  the  dead,  or  left  them  to  be  resolved  into  dust  by  the 
slow  process  of  decay;  but  the  Egyptians,  believing  that 
the  soul  would  again  tenant  the  body,  resorted  to  expen 
sive  processes  for  its  preservation.  The  same  remarks 
will  apply  when  we  institute  a  comparison  between  the 
Teocallis  of  Central  America  and  the  pyramids.  They 
differ  both  in  the  mode  of  construction  and  the  object 
aimed  at.  The  pyramids  are  complete  in  themselves,  and 
as  they  tower  up  in  the  Nile  Valley,  the  eye  at  once  takes 
in  the  coherence  of  the  several  parts.  The  Teocallis  form 
but  a  part  of  the  general  plan ;  they  were  but  the  founda 
tions  for  more  elaborate  structures.  'There  is  no  pyra 
mid  in  Egypt,'  says  Stevens,  'with  a  palace  or  temple 
upon  it;  there  is  no  pyramidal  structure  in  this  country 
(Central  America)  without/  The  pyramids,  according 
to  Herodotus,  were  originally  coated  with  stone  from 
base  to  summit;  the  Teocallis  have  flattened  summits, 
with  flights  of  steps  descending  to  the  base." — Prehis 
toric  Races,  p.  187. 

"In  its  general  features,  American  architecture  does 
not  offer  any  strong  resemblances  to  the  Egyptian." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  59. 

"It" — the  great  mound  at  Cholula — "has  been  called 
a  pyramid,  with  other  mounds  in  Mexico  and  Central 
America,  but  this  is  not  a  proper  term  for  these  Amer 
indian  works.  They  have  not  the  character  of  the 
Egyptian  pyramids,  nor  were  they  constructed  with  the 
same  object.  The  pyramids  were  tombs,  while  the  large 
Amerind  mounds  were  foundations  for  buildings." — 
North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  351. 

On  the  similarities  and  dissimilarities  of  Egyptian 
and  American  sculpture  work  Bancroft  remarks:  "Be 
tween  American  and  Egyptian  sculpture  there  is,  at  first 


354  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

sight,  a  very  striking  general  resemblance.  This,  how 
ever,  almost  entirely  disappears  upon  close  examination 
and  comparison.  Both  peoples  represented  the  human 
figure  in  profile,  the  Egyptians  invariably,  the  Americans 
generally;  in  the  sculpture  of  both,  much  the  same  atti 
tudes  of  the  body  predominate,  and  these  are  but  awk 
wardly  designed ;  there  is  a  general  resemblance  between 
the  lofty  headdresses  worn  by  the  various  figures,  though 
in  detail  there  is  little  agreement.  These  are  the  points 
of  analogy  and  they  are  sufficiently  prominent  to  account 
for  the  idea  of  resemblance  which  has  been  so  often  and 
so  strongly  expressed.  But  while  sculpture  in  Egypt  is 
for  the  most  part  in  intaglio,  in  America  it  is  usually  in 
relief.  In  the  former  country  the  faces  are  expression 
less,  always  of  the  same  type,  and,  though  executed  in 
profile,  the  full  eye  is  placed  on  the  side  of  the  head;  in 
the  New  World,  on  the  contrary,  we  meet  with  many 
types  of  countenance,  some  of  which  are  by  no  means 
lacking  in  expression." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  60, 
61. 

It  will  be  observed  from  these  quotations  that  there 
is  very  little  in  either  American  architecture  or  sculpture 
to  suggest  the  theory  that  the  ancient  Americans  were 
familiar  with  the  arts  and  customs  of  ancient  Egypt. 

7.  The  practice  of  embalmment  is  mentioned  by  Dela- 
field  as  still  further  proof  of  the  Egyptian  origin  of 
ancient  American  civilization; 

The  following  description  of  the  Egyptian  mode  is 
given  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica"  (Art.  "Embalm 
ing")  :  "In  that  country  certain  classes  of  the  community 
were  specially  appointed  for  the  practice  of  the  art.  The 
brains  were  in  part  removed  through  the  nostrils  by 
means  of  a  bent  iron  implement,  and  in  part  by  the 
injection  of  drugs.  The  intestines  having-  been  drawn 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


355 


out  through  an  incision  in  the  left  side,  the  abdomen  was 
cleansed  with  palm-wine,  and  filled  with  myrrh,  cassia, 
and  other  materials,  and  the  opening  was  sewed  up.  This 
done,  the  body  was  steeped  several  days  in  a  solution  of 
litron  or  natron.  Diodorus  relates  that  the  cutter  ap 
pointed  to  make  the  incision  in  the  flank  for  the  removal 
of  the  intestines,  as  soon  as  he  had  performed  his  office, 
was  pursued  with  stones  and  curses  by  those  about  him, 
it  being  held  by  the  Egyptians  a  detestable  thing  to 
commit  any  violence  or  inflict  a  wound  on  the  body. 
After  the  steeping,  the  body  was  washed,  and  handed 
over  to  the  swathers,  a  peculiar  class  of  the  lowest  order 
of  priests,  called  by  Plutarch  cholchytoe,  by  whom  it  was 
bandaged  in  gummed  cloth;  it  was  then  ready  for  the 
coffin.  Mummies  thus  prepared  were  considered  to  rep 
resent  Osiris.  In  another  method  of  embalming,  costing 
twenty-two  minae  (about  $450),  the  abdomen  was  in 
jected  with  'cedar-tree  pitch,'  which,  as  it  would  seem 
from  Pliny,  was  the  liquid  distillate  of  the  pitch-pine. 
This  is  stated  by  Herodotus  to  have  had  a  corrosive  and 
solvent  action  on  the  viscera.  After  injection  the  body 
was  steeped  a  certain  number  of  days  in  natron ;  the 
contents  of  the  abdomen  were  allowed  to  escape,  and  the 
process  was  then  complete.  The  preparation  of  the 
bodies  of  the  poorest  consisted  simply  in  placing  them  in 
natron  for  seventy  days,  after  a  previous  rinsing  of  the 
abdomen  with  'syrmsea.'  The  material  principally  used 
in  the  costlier  modes  of  embalming  appears  to  have  been 
asphalt ;  wax  wras  more  rarely  employed.  In  some  cases 
embalming  seems  to  have  been  effected  by  immersing 
the  body  in  a  bath  of  molten  bitumen.  Tanning  also  was 
resorted  to.  Occasionally  the  viscera,  after  treatment, 
were  in  part  or  wholly  replaced  in  the  body,  together 
with  wax  figures  of  the  four  genii  of  Amenti.  More 


356  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

commonly  they  were  embalmed  in  a  mixture  of  sand  and 
asphalt,  and  buried  in  vases,  or  canopi,  placed  near  the 
mummy,  the  abdomen  being  filled  with  chips  and  saw 
dust  of  cedar  and  a  small  quantity  of  natron.  In  one  jar 
were  placed  the  stomach  and  large  intestine;  in  another, 
the  small  intestines ;  in  a  third,  the  lungs  and  heart ;  in  a 
fourth,  the  gall-bladder  and  liver." 

Many  of  the  so-called  "mummies"  of  America  are 
not  real  mummies  at  all,  but  have  been  preserved,  not  by 
artificial  means,  but  by  the  coldness  and  dryness  of  the 
climate  of  those  countries  in  which  they  have  been  found 
or  by  certain  antiseptic  properties  in  the  soils  of  their 
depositories.  Such  are  those  bodies  from  caves  of  Ten 
nessee,  Kentucky,  the  cliff-houses  of  the  southwestern 
part  of  the  United  States  and  many  of  those  from  the 
sepulchres  of  Peru. 

But  the  ancient  nations  of  the  New  World,  as  well 
as  those  of  the  Old,  had  various  ways  of  preserving  the 
dead.  But  none  of  these  ways  are  very  much  like  those 
of  Egypt.  The  tribes  of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas  and 
Florida,  according  to  Beverly,  first  flayed  the  corpse, 
slitting  the  skin  only  in  the  back ;  then  cleaned  the  bones, 
carefully  removing  all  the  flesh;  and  then,  after  drying 
them,  put  them  back  in  the  skin,  filling  the  remaining 
cavity  with  fine  white  sand.1  The  lord  of  Chalco,  cap 
turing  two  Tezcucan  princes,  had  them  slain  and  dried 
and  placed  as  light-holders  in  his  ballroom  that  he  might 
feast  his  eyes  on  their  hated  forms.2  Among  the  Aztecs 
the  body  of  the  king  was  washed  in  aromatic  water,  after 
which  the  bowels  were  removed  and  the  cavity  was  filled 
with  aromatic  substances.  This  was  done,  not  to  pre 
serve  the  body  indefinitely,  however,  but  simply  to  pre- 

1  "First  Kept.   Bu.   Am.   Ethno.,"   p.    131. 

2  Bancroft,  II :  604. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  357. 

serve  it  until  time,  for  burial.1  Certain  Isthmian  tribes 
embalmed  their  caciques  by  placing  them  on  cane  hurdles 
or  hanging  them  up  by  a  cord  over  a  slow  fire  of  herbs 
and  drying  them  very  much  the  same  as  a  farmer  does 
hams.2  In  Peru  the  simplest  method  of  preserving  the 
body  was  by  exposing  it  to  the  action  of  the  cold,  exceed 
ingly  dry  and  highly  rarefied  atmosphere  of  the  moun 
tains.  If  any  other  method  was  employed,  it  was  of  a 
primitive  character  and  was  in  no  way  similar  to  those 
methods  practiced  by  the  Egyptians. 

Bancroft  closes  his  review  of  the  evidences  presented 
to  prove  the  theory  of  the  Egyptian  origin  of  ancient 
American  civilization  in  these  words :  "But  all  such  anal 
ogies  are  far  too  slender  to  be  worth  anything  as  evi 
dence  ;  there  is  scarcely  one  of  them  that  would  not  apply 
to  several  other  nations  equally  as  well  as  to  the  Egyp 
tians." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  63.  The  claim  that 
the  ancient  Americans  possessed  a  knowledge  of  the 
customs  and  habits  of  Egypt  rests,  then,  upon  no  better 
foundation  than  the  faint  similarities,  forced  resem 
blances,  vague  analogies  and  accidental  coincidences 
which  have  been  traced  between  the  two  countries.  A 
very  unstable  foundation,  indeed. 

4.  Native  American  Culture  of  Indigenous  Origin. 
„  Sweeping  aside  these  views  of  the  exotic  origin  of 
aboriginal  American  civilization,  we  may  safely  accept 
the  conclusion  that  the  culture  of  the  ancient  inhabitants 
of  this  continent  was  native  born  and  bred.  So  many 
are  the  indications  pointing  in  this  direction  that  I  feel 
warranted  in  saying  that  it  is  the  point  to  which  all 
unbiased  students  will  eventually  come,  and  to  which 
most  have  come. 

1  Bancroft,  II :  603. 

s  Bancroft,  11:782,  •:;?•<• 


358  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

But,  while  it  is  certain  that  ancient -American  culture 
was  of  indigenous  origin  and  development,  no  one  can 
say  that  in  the  past  influxes  of  foreign  immigration  into 
America  did  not  occur.  This  is  not  only  possible,  but 
probable.  All  that  we  can  contend  for  is  that  the  dis 
tinctive  culture  of  aboriginal  America,  so  far  as  its  char 
acter  is  known  from  the  monuments  and  traditions,  bore 
no  marks  of  a  foreign  impress,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
was  purely  indigenous.  So,  if  bodies  of  immigrants  did 
come  to  this  continent  in  ancient  times,  they  were  too 
small  in  numbers  or  too  weak  in  influence  to  leave  any 
evidence  of  their  existence  behind. 

The  points  of  similarity  between  the  Americans  a.id 
other  peoples  are  nothing  more  than  we  can  expect.  The 
changes  of  the  moon  may  be  observed  in  Africa  as  well 
as  in  America,  and  the  Hottentot  and  Cherokee  are  not 
proved  related  because  they  happen  to  reckon  time  by 
these  changes.  Men  everywhere  have  the  faculty  of 
adhesiveness,  and  it  is  no  sign  that  the  American  Indians 
have  come  from  Polynesia  because  they  have  banded 
themselves  together  into  tribes.  The  faculties  of  self- 
esteem  and  approbativeness  are  specially  prominent  in 
some  races  and  account  for  the  love  of  ornamentation 
manifested  by  the  Indians  and  the  Fiji  Islanders  with 
out  the  supposition  that  they  are  related.  While  the 
universal  and  inherent  idea  of  uncleanness  attached  to 
the  menstrual  discharges  will  fully  account  for  the  peri 
odic  separation  of  the  Indian  women  without  us  sup 
posing  that  the  habit  was  derived  from  the  Jews,  I  think 
that  it  is  safe  to  reject,  as  proving  ethnical  identity,  those 
analogies  which  may  spring  from  common  human  in 
stinct.  As  for  the  rest,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  they 
are  not  mere  coincidences,  they  must  be  treated  as  such. 

Turning  t»ur  attention  to  the  points  of  difference  be- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  359 

tween  the  culture  of  the  ancient  Americans  and  that  of 
the  nations  of  the  Old  World,  we  find  not  only  that  they 
were  numerous,  but  that  they  were  also  radical  and  vital, 
and  show  that  the  separation  of  the  men  of  this  continent 
from  those  of  the  other  took  place  long  before  the 
organization  of  those  kingdoms  known  to  history  and 
the  development  of  the  higher  arts.  The  most  salient 
features  of  the  culture  of  ancient  America,  which  prove 
its  indigenous  origin  and  development,  are : 

1.  The  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  of  the  manufacture  and  use  of  iron  and  steel  tools. 
This  proves  that  their  separation  from  the  people  of  the 
Old  World  took  place  before  the  upper  status  of  bar 
barism   had   been   reached,   hence   before   the    founding 
of  the  kingdoms  of  Egypt  and  Israel   from  which  the 
Book  of  Mormon  claims  the  latter  colony  obtained  its 
civilization. 

2.  The  wide  dissimilarity  between  the  languages  of 
the  Americans  and  those  of  the  other  continent,  those 
of  America  belonging  to   the   poly  synthetic  group   and 
those  of  Egypt  and   Palestine  belonging  to  the  inflec 
tional.     "While  certain  characteristics,"   says   Bancroft, 
"are  found  in  common  throughout  all  the  languages  of 
America,   these   languages   are    as   a   whole    sufficiently 
peculiar  to  be  distinguishable  from  the  speech  of  all  the 
other   races  of   the   world." — Native   Races,    Vol.    III., 
p.  553.     And  this  proves  the  vast  antiquity  of  the  race, 
an  antiquity  reaching  far  back  of  600  B.  C. 

3.  The  peculiar   features  in  the  religion  and  myth 
ology   of  the   American   tribes.      The    gods   of   ancient 
America  were  peculiar  to  America  and  were  of  a  lower 
order,  even,  than  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Egypt.     The 
ancient   Americans   were    sun-worshipers    and   animists, 
and  practiced  human  sacrificing,  while  their  cosmological 


360  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

and   eschatological   beliefs   were   peculiar   as   were   also 
their  rites  and  ceremonies. 

4.  The  peculiar  types  of  American  architecture  which 
differ   from  the  architectural  types  of  the  Old  World. 
"There  is  nothing  in  any  of  the  remains,  so  far  devel 
oped,"  says  Dellenbaugh,  "that  indicates   foreign  influ 
ence  prior  to  the  Discovery.     Every  architectural  work 
on  the  continent  is  purely  Amerindian  or  modified  by 
contact   with  other   races   subsequent  to    1492." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  247. 

5.  The  ignorance  of  some  of  the  most-advanced  tribes 
of  the  use  of  the  plummet.     "Nor,  although  they  con 
structed  stone  walls  of  considerable  height,  did  they  have 
any  knowledge  of  the  plumb-line  or  plummet." — Essays 
of  an  Americanist,  p.  442.   This  disproves  any  connection 
of  the  ancient  Americans  with  the  inhabitants  of  Egypt 
and  Palestine  at  least  as  late  as  claimed  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon. 

6.  The  peculiarities  of  the  calendars  of  the  Mayas, 
Mexicans  and  Muyscas  by  which  they  are  distinguished 
from  the  calendar  systems  of  the  Egyptians  and  Jews. 

7.  The  structure  of  American  society  which  differed 
from  the  structure  of  Oriental  society  in  being  founded 
upon  the  gens  or  clan  as  its  unit  instead  of  upon  the 
family. 

That  the  reader  may  know  how  our  archaeologists 
stand  on  the  origin  of  aboriginal  culture,  I  submit  the 
following  quotations  from  their  works: 

"It  is  the  spectacle  of  a  people  skilled  in  architecture, 
sculpture  and  drawing,  and,  beyond  doubt,  other  more 
perishable  arts,  and  possessing  the  cultivation  and  refine 
ment  attendant  upon  these,  and  not  derived  from  the 
Old  World,  but  originating  and  growing  up  here  with 
out  models  or  masters,  having  a  distinct,  separate,  inde- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  361 

pendent  existence,  like  the  plants  and  fruits  of  the  soil, 
indigenous." — Stephens,  in  "Incidents  of  Travel  in  Cen 
tral  America,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  311. 

"The  more  we  study  them" — the  American  monu 
ments — "the  more  we  find  it  necessary  to  believe  that 
the  civilization  they  represent  was  originated  in  America, 
and  probably  in  the  region  where  they  are  found.  It 
did  not  come  from  the  Old  World;  it  was  the  work  of 
some  remarkably  gifted  branch  of  the  race  found  on  the 
southern  part  of  this  continent  when  it  was  discovered  in 
1492.  Undoubtedly  it  was  very  old.  Its  original  begin 
ning  may  have  been  as  old  as  Egypt,  or  even  farther 
back  in  the  past  than  the  ages  to  which  Atlantis  must  be 
referred;  and  it  may  have  been  later  than  the  beginning 
of  Egypt.  Who  can  certainly  tell  its  age?  Whether 
earlier  or  later,  it  was  original." — Ancient  America, 
p.  184. 

"We  seek,  then,  in  vain  for  any  analogies  in  art  which 
would  connect  the  civilization  of  this  country  with  that 
of  the  Old  World.  That  art  was  not  derived  from  a 
remote  source;  it  was  the  outgrowth  of  a  people  domes 
ticated  to  the  soil." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  330. 

"Though  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  Mound  Build 
ers  were  indigenous,  we  must  admit  that  their  civiliza 
tion  was  purely  such — the  natural  product  of  climate 
and  the  conditions  surrounding  them." — North  Ameri 
cans  o/  Antiquity,  p.  100. 

"The  most  competent  observers  are  agreed  that 
American  art  bears  the  indisputable  stamp  of  its  indig 
enous  growth.  Those  analogies  and  identities  which  have 
been  brought  forward  to  prove  its  Asiatic  or  European 
or  Polynesian  origin,  whether  in  myth,  folklore  or  tech 
nical  details,  belong  wholly  and  only  to  the  uniform 
development  of  human  culture  under  similar  conditions. 


362  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

This  is  their  true  anthropological  interpretation,  and 
we  need  no  other." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  pp. 
33,  34- 

"That  successive  waves  of  migration  occurred  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt,  and  that  these  successive  bodies  of 
immigrants  differed  to  some  extent  in  culture  and  in  race 
is  highly  probable,  but  that  the  distinctively  American 
culture  which  may  be  traced  from  the  shell-heap  to  the 
mound,  from  the  mound  to  the  pueblo,  from  the  pueblo 
to  the  structures  of  Mexico,  Central  America  and  Peru, 
irrespective  of  race — that  this  is  indebted  to  an  equiva 
lent  foreign  culture  for  its  chief  features,  is  utterly 
incapable  of  proof  in  fact  and  highly  improbable  in 
theory." — Prehistoric  America,  pp.  523,  524. 

"The  generally  accepted  conclusion  in  reference  to 
the  origin  of  the  American  aborigines  seems  to  be  that 
man  reached  this  continent  while  the  peoples  of  the  Old 
World  were  yet  in  a  primitive  condition,  and  at  a  time 
when  the  highest  stage  of  culture  was  expressed  by  the 
knife  and  spearpoint  of  chipped  stone,  and  developed  in 
dependently  in  accord  with  the  natural  conditions  with 
which  he  was  surrounded." — North  America,  p.  356. 

"That  the  Mayas  were  a  race  autochthon  on  the  west 
ern  continent  and  did  not  receive  their  civilization  from 
Asia  or  Africa,  seems  a  rational  conclusion,  to  be  de 
duced  from  the  foregoing  facts.  If  we  had  nothing  but 
their  name  to  prove  it,  it  would  be  sufficient,  since  its 
etymology  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  American  Maya 
language." — Vestiges  of  the  Mayas,  p.  82. 

"It  seems  that  the  Amerindian  race,  while  originally 
composed  of  different  elements,  was,  as  a  body,  separated 
from  the  other  peoples  of  the  world,  at  a  remote  epoch, 
and  by  peculiar  climatic  and  geographic  influences, 
welded  into  an  ethnic  unity,  which  was  unimpressed  by 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


363 


outside  influences  till  modern  times." — North  Americans 
of  Yesterday,  p.  458. 

"One  of  the  most  difficult  problems  of  North  Ameri 
can  archaeology  is  that  relating  to  the  origin  and  pecul 
iarities  of  Mexican  and  Central  American  civilization. 
That  it  was  indigenous  is  now  the  prevailing  opinion 
among  antiquarians  and  ethnologists." — American  Ar 
chaeology,  p.  339. 

THE   ANTIQUITY   OF   ABORIGINAL   AMERICAN    CIVILIZATION. 

On  the  high  antiquity  of  ancient  American  civiliza 
tion  the  Book  of  Mormon  speaks  in  no  uncertain  terms. 
It  tells  us  that  the  oldest  works  of  Central  America, 
Mexico  and  the  United  States  were  erected  during  a 
period  of  time  beginning  about  five  hundred  years  after 
the  deluge  and  ending  about  600  B.  C,  and  that  most  of 
the  other  works  of  these  countries,  with  many  in  Peru, 
were  constructed  during  the  thousand  years  intervening 
between  the  latter  date  and  400  A.  D.  According  to  this 
claim  most  of  the  ancient  cities  of  the  New  World  were 
erected  before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 

In  its  theory  of  the  high  antiquity  of  ancient  Ameri 
can  civilization  the  Book  of  Mormon  has  the  support  of 
most  of  the  earlier  archaeologists.  It  used  to  be  the  habit 
with  some  to  reckon  the  period  between  the  Conquest 
and  the  golden  age  of  ancient  America  by  millenniums. 
Montesinos  had  Peru  peopled  by  civilized  men  five 
centuries  after  the  Deluge.  Dupaix  declared  that  Palen- 
que  was  antediluvian,  or,  at  least,  that  a  flood  had  once 
covered  it.  While  Catlin  claimed  that  for  three  thousand 
years  the  ocean  had  been  the  bed  of  both  it  and  Uxmal. 
Baldwin  had  the  Mound  Builders  leaving  the  Mississippi 
Valley  not  later  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  after  occu 
pying  that  section  for  a  "very  long  period,"  and  had  them 


364  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

entering  Mexico  as  the  Toltecs  in  the  year  955  B.  C, 
back  of  which  he  traced  the  civilization  of  the  Colhuas 
for  untold  ages.  And  Foster  accepts  both  his  theory 
and  his  date.  Running  to  the  opposite  extreme  is  an 
other  class  who  hold  that  Palenque,  Copan  and  the  other 
cities  of  Central  America  were  the  work  of  the  Toltecs 
after  their  expulsion  from  Mexico  in  the  tenth  century 
A.  D. 

I  think  that  it  can  truthfully  be  said  that  but  few  of 
the  ancient  cities  of  America  antedate  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era,  though  the  civilization,  or  the  civiliza 
tions,  that  built  them  may  have  been  centuries  in  develop 
ing.  The  theory  that  the  greater  part  of  the  work  was 
done  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  that  it  was  prac 
tically  all  completed  before  the  fifth  century  A.  D.,  as 
claimed  by  the  Mormons,  is  nullified  by  every  line  of 
evidence,  traditional,  archaeological  and  historical. 

Some  of  the  cities  of  Peru  which  are  identified  by  the 
Committee  on  American  Archaeology  with  the  Nephite 
cities  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  are  known  to  have  been 
built  both  within  comparatively  recent  times,  and 
by  existing  tribes.  Gran  Chimu  is  identified  with  the 
Nephite  city  of  Middoni,  but  Brinton  gives  it  not  only 
a  recent  origin,  but  also  ascribes  it  to  the  Yuncas,  a  tribe 
that  lived  in  the  vicinity  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  Con 
quest.  He  says :  "There  is  little  doubt  but  that  the  Yun 
cas  immigrated  to  their  locality  at  some  not  very  distant 
period  before  the  conquest.  According  to  their  own 
traditions  their  ancestors  journeyed  down  the  coast  in 
their  canoes  from  a  home  to  the  north,  until  they  reached 
the  port  of  Truxillo.  Here  they  settled  and  in  later  years 
constructed  the  enormous  palace  known  as  the  Gran 
Chimu,  whose  massive  brick  walls,  spacious  terraces,  vast 
galleries  and  fronts  decorated  with  bas-reliefs  and  rich 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  365 

frescoes,  are  still  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  travel 
ers." — The  American  Race,  p.  224. 

It  is  also  pretty  certain  that  the  "enigmatical  ruins" 
of  Tiahuanuco,  which  were  deserted  when  the  Spaniards 
came  to  Peru,  are  the  work  of  the  Aymaras.  "The 
observations  of  David  Forbes  on  the  present  architecture 
of  the  Aymaras,"  Brinton  says,  "lend  strong  support  to 
his  theory  that  the  structures  of  Tiahuanuco,  if  not  pro 
jected  by  that  nation,  were  carried  out  by  Aymara  archi 
tects  and  workmen." — Ibid,  p.  220. 

When  the  Spaniards  came  to  Peru  they  found  it 
inhabited  by  two  prominent  tribes,  the  Quichuas  and 
Aymaras,  the  latter  subject  to  the  former.  But  this  had 
not  always  "been,  and  not  a  few  of  the  students  of  the 
antiquities  and  history  of  Peru  believe  that  in  the 
earlier  period  of  Peruvian  civilization  the  Aymaras  were 
the  leading  people  and  that  they  were  "the  creators  or 
inspirers  of  the  civilization  which  the  Kechuas  extended 
so  widely  over  the  western  coast." — Ibid,  p.  219.  For 
this  reason  it  seems  probable  that  to  them  is  to  be 
ascribed  not  only  Tiahuanuco,  but  also  Old  Huanuco, 
Cuzco  and  other  cities  of  the  first  epoch  of  Peruvian 
civilization. 

Passing  up  into  Central  America,  we  find  evidence  of 
the  post-Christian  erection  of  most  of  the  ancient  cities 
of  that  section.  This  is  certainly  true  of  Uxmal,  Chichen 
Itza,  Peten  and  most  of  the  others  of  Yucatan,  and  it  has 
been  maintained,  by  some  writers,  even  for  Palenque, 
Copan  and  T'Ho. 

Palenque  is  conceded  to  be  one  of  the  oldest  cities 
in  Central  America.  It  was  deserted  when  Cortez  con 
quered  Mexico,  and  probably  had  been  for  some  time. 
The  traditional  date  of  its  founding,  according  to  Ordo 
nez,  is  955  B.  C.,  and  its  founder,  according  to  the 


366  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Tzendals,  was  Votan.  But  this  date  is  by  no  means 
established,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  Mayan  occupancy 
of  this  region  began  subsequent  to  it.  Bancroft,  after 
giving  the  traditional  date  of  its  founding,  says :  "Pa- 
lenque  may  be  conjecturally  referred  to  a  period  between 
the  first  and  eighth  centuries." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV., 
p.  362.  And  Nadaillac  says:  "The  most  daring  conjec 
tures  do  not  .admit  of  our  dating  the  monuments  of 
Palenque  earlier  than  the  first  centuries  of  our  era." — 
Prehistoric  America,  p.  322.  While  Peet  declares  that 
the  ruined  cities  of  this  continent  "do  not  date  earlier 
than  five  hundred  years  after  Christ." — Ancient  Monu 
ments  and  Ruined  Cities  (Introduction). 

Copan  is  identified  by  the  Committee  on  American 
Archaeology  as  a  Jaredite  city,  probably  Moron.  This 
would  put  its  founding  two  thousand  or  more  years  be 
fore  Christ.  But,  on  the  contrary,  if  tradition  is  to  be 
trusted,  it  could  not  have  been  built  so  very  long  before 
the  Conquest,  for  the  account  of  its  founding  was  yet  in 
the  memory  of  the  natives  when  they  first  met  the  Span 
iards.  These  ruins  were  first  visited  by  Diego  de  Palacio 
in  the  year  1576,  and  the  description  that  he  has  left  is 
pronounced  by  Maudsley,  the  English  explorer,  to  be 
"such  a  one  as  might  have  been  written  by  any  intelligent 
visitor  within  even  the  last  few  years."  Palacio  gave  the 
following  native  account  of  the  founding  of  the  city:  "I 
endeavored  with  all  possible  care  to  ascertain  from  the 
Indians,  through  the  traditions  derived  from  the  ancients, 
what  people  lived  here,  or  what  they  knew  or  had  heard 
from  their  ancestors  concerning  them.  But  they  had  no 
books  relating  to  their  antiquities,  nor  do  I  believe  that 
in  all  this  district  there  is  more  than  one,  which  I  pos 
sess.  They  say  that  in  ancient  times  there  came  from 
Yucatan  a  great  lord,  who  built  these  edifices,  but  that 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  3^7 

at  the  end  of  some  years  he  returned  to  his  native  coun 
try,  leaving  them  entirely  deserted.  And  this  is  what 
appears  most  likely,  for  tradition  says  that  the  people  of 
Yucatan  in  time  past  conquered  the  provinces  of  Uyajal, 
Lacandon,  Verapaz,  Chiquimula  and  Copan,  and  it  is 
certain  that  the  Apay  language,  which  is  spoken  here,  is 
current  and  understood  in  Yucatan  and  the  aforesaid 


provinces."  ] 


The  cities  of  Yucatan  were,  no  doubt,  erected  after 
Palenque  and  by  colonies  from  the  country  of  which  that 
city  was  the  capital  or  the  chief  religious  center.  The 
first  people  are,  however,  said  to  have  come  from  the 
east,  and  are  called  in  the  traditions  cenial,  or  "little 
descent,"  because  of  the  smallness  of  their  numbers.  The 
others,  who  came  from  the  west,  are  called  nohenial,  or 
"great  descent."  The  first  are  thought  by  some  to  have 
come  from  the  Old  World,  but  Lizana  believes  that  they 
came  from  Cuba,  and  Orozco  y  Berra  thinks  that  they 
came  from  Florida.  Fancourt,  Brinton,  Thomas  and 
most  other  recent  writers  reject  in  toto  the  idea  of  an 
eastern  immigration  and  bring  the  ancient  inhabitants 
from  the  west  or  northwest.  And  this  is  in  accord  with 
all  the  other  evidences.  The  Yucatec  hero  was  Zamna, 
who  is  said  to  have  introduced  Maya  institutions,  divided 
the  country  into  provinces  and  named  the  various  local 
ities  on  the  peninsula.  He  died  at  an  advanced  age  and 
was  buried  at  Izamal.  Following  the  rule  of  Zamna,  the 
Itzaob,  three  most  holy  men,  ruled  over  the  Itzas  at 
Chichen  Itza.  One  of  these  brothers  was  Kukulkan,  the 
Quetzalcoatl  of  the  Nahuas.  The  founding  of  Chichen 
Itza  is  fixed  by  Thomas  in  the  sixth  century  A.  D.  "The 
date  of  the  founding  of  Chichen  is  of  course  unknown, 

1  "American  Archeology,"  p.  307. 


368  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

yet  the  traditions,  as  shown  by  the  author  in  his  'Study 
of  the  Manuscript  Troano,'  appear  to  indicate  the  sixth 
century  A.  D.  as  the  probable  date." — American  Archae 
ology,  p.  302.  Following  the  Itzas  the  Tutul  Xiu  reigned 
in  Yucatan.  Perez  gives  173  A.  D.  as  the  date  of  their 
migration  from  Chiapas,  but  Bancroft,  who  computes 
their  periods  differently,  fixes  it  as  late  as  401  and  would 
have  them  enter  the  southern  part  of  the  peninsula  in 
the  year  482.1  But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that 
this  royal  family  entered  Yucatan  after  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era  and  that  they  erected  the  city  of  Uxmal 
in  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century.  On  the  antiquity 
of  the  cities  of  Yucatan  Bancroft  writes :  "The  history 
of  the  Mayas  indicates  the  building  of  some  of  the  cities 
at  various  dates  from  the  third  to  the  tenth  centuries. 
As  I  have  said  before,  there  is  nothing  in  the  buildings 
to  indicate  the  date  of  their  erection — that  they  were  or 
were  not  standing  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian 
era."— Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  284. 

The  reasons  that  some  writers  have  advanced  for 
believing  that  the  cities  of  Central  America  are  of  great 
antiquity  are:  (i)  Their  extremely  dilapidated  condition. 
(2)  The  immense  trees  and  the  great  amount  of  vege 
table  mould  found  upon  them.  And  (3)  the  ignorance 
of  the  natives  concerning  their  origin  and  history.  But 
in  answer  to  these  it  may  be  said,  first,  that  the  buildings 
were  usually  made  of  soft  limestone,  which  under  the 
action  of  tropical  rains,  heat  and  vegetation  soon  pre 
sents  an  antiquated  appearance ;  second,  that  in  a  trop 
ical  climate  the  growth  of  forest  trees,  and  the  conse 
quent  accumulation  of  vegetable  mould,  is  so  rapid  that 
by  this  evidence  the  ruins  could,  at  best,  be  given  an 

1  Bancroft,  V:  627. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  369 

antiquity  of  but  a  few  hundred  years;  and,  third,  that 
the  ignorance  of  the  natives  in  regard  to  their  origin  is 
due  to  the  weakness  of  the  primitive  mind  in  retaining 
the  most  signal  events  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  genera 
tions.  Yet  we  know  that  the  Tzendals,  Quiches  and 
Mayas  did  possess  traditions  by  which  they  were  con 
nected  with  the  people  who  built  Palenque  and  the  other 
Central  American  cities. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  take  up  the  question  of 
the  antiquity  of  the  Mound  Builders,  as  it  has  already 
been  considered.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  is  conceded  by 
all  that  the  mound-building  period  did  not  close  until 
after  the  European  occupation  began,  and  by  most  all 
that  it  did  not  begin  until  after  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era.  And  what  has  been  said  for  the  an 
tiquity  of  the  Mound  Builders  can  also  be  said  for  the 
antiquity  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers. 

The  views  of  most  recent  writers  on  the  antiquity  of 
native  American  civilization  are  ably  set  forth  in  the 
following  by  Dr.  Brinton,  an  authority  whose  opinions, 
though  not  always  accepted,  are  always  respected  by 
other  archaeologists : 

"When  we  turn  to  the  monumental  data,  to  the  archi 
tecture  and  structural  relics  of  the  ancient  Americans, 
we  naturally  think  first  of  the  imposing,  stone-built  fort 
resses  of  Peru,  the  massive  pyramids  and  temples  of 
Yucatan  and  Mexico,  and  the  vast  brick-piles  of  the 
Pueblo  Indians. 

"It  is  doubtful  if  any  of  these  notable  monuments 
supply  prehistoric  dates  of  excessive  antiquity.  The 
pueblos,  both  those  now  occupied  and  the  vastly  greater 
number  whose  ruins  lie  scattered  over  the  valleys  and 
mesas  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  were  constructed 
by  the  ancestors  of  the  tribes  who  still  inhabit  that 


370  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

region,  and  this  at  no  distant  day.  Though  we  can  not 
assign  exact  dates  to  the  development  of  this  peculiar 
civilization,  there  are  abundant  reasons,  drawn  from  lan 
guage,  physical  geography  and  the  character  of  the 
architecture,  to  include  all  these  structures  within  the 
period  since  the  commencement  of  our  era. 

"There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  same  is 
true  of  all  the  stone  and  brick  edifices  of  Mexico  and 
Central  America.  The  majority  of  them  were  occupied 
at  the  period  of  the  Conquest;  others  were  in  process  of 
building;  and  of  others  the  record  of  the  date  of  their 
construction  was  clearly  in  memory  and  was  not  distant. 
Thus,  the  famous  temple  of  Huitzilopochtli  at  Tenoch- 
titlan,  and  the  spacious  palace — or,  if  you  prefer  the 
word,  'communal  house' — of  the  ruler  of  Tezcuco,  had 
been  completed  within  the  lifetime  of  many  who  met  the 
Spaniards.  To  be  sure,  even  then  there  were  once 
famous  cities  fallen  to  ruins  and  sunk  to  oblivion  in  the 
tropical  forests.  Such  was  Palenque,  which  could  not 
have  failed  to  attract  the  attention  of  Co'rtez  had  it  been 
inhabited.  Such  also  was  T'Ho,  on  the  site  of  the  pres 
ent  city  of  Merida,  Yucatan,  where  the  earliest  explorers 
found  lofty  stone  mounds  and  temples  covered  with  a 
forest  as  heavy  as  the  primitive  growth  around  it.  But 
tradition  and  the  present  condition  of  such  of  these  old 
cities  as  have  been  examined  unite  in  the  probability  that 
they  do  not  antedate  the  Conquest  more  than  a  few  cen 
turies. 

"In  the  opinion  of  some  observers,  the  enigmatical 
ruins  on  the  plains  of  Tiahuanaco,  a  few  leagues  from 
the  shore  of  Lake  Titicaca,  in  Peru,  carry  us  far,  very 
far,  beyond  any  such  modern  date.  'Even  the  memory 
of  their  builders/  says  one  of  the  more  recent  visitors  to 
these  marvelous  relics,  Gen.  Bartolome  Mitre,  'even  their 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  371 

memory  was  lost  thousands  of  years  before  the  discovery 
of  America.' 

"Such  a  statement  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
confession  of  ignorance.  We  have  not  discovered  the 
period  nor  the  people  concerned  in  the  ruins  of  Tiahu- 
anaco.  It  must  be  remembered  that  they  are  not  the 
remains  of  a  populous  city,  but  merely  the  foundations 
and  beginnings  of  some  vast  religious  edifice  which  was 
left  incomplete,  probably  owing  to  the  death  of  the  pro 
jector  or  to  unforeseen  difficulties.  If  this  is  borne  in 
mind,  much  of  the  obscurity  about  the  origin,  the  pur 
pose  and  the  position  of  these  structures  will  be  removed. 
They  do  not  justify  a  claim  to  an  age  of  thousands  of 
years  before  the  Conquest;  hundreds  will  suffice.  Nor  is 
it  necessary  to  assent  to  the  opinion  advanced  by 
General  Mitre,  and  supported  by  some  other  archaeol 
ogists,  that  the  most  ancient  monuments  in  America 
are  those  of  most  perfect  construction,  and,  there 
fore,  that  in  this  continent  there  has  been,  in  civiliza 
tion,  not  progress,  but  failure;  not  advance,  but  retro 
gression. 

"The  uncertainty  which  rests  over  the  age  of  the 
structures  at  Tiahuanaco  is  scarcely  greater  than  that 
which  still  shrouds  the  origin  of  the  mounds  and  earth 
works  of  the  Ohio  and  Upper  Mississippi  Valleys.  Yet 
I  venture  to  say  that  the  opinion  is  steadily  gaining 
ground  that  these  interesting  memorials  of  vanished  na 
tions  are  not  older  than  the  medieval  period  of  Euro 
pean  history.  The  condition  of  the  arts  which  they 
reveal  indicates  a  date  that  we  must  place  among  the 
more  recent  in  American  chronology.  The  simple  fact 
that  tobacco  and  maize  were  cultivated  plants  is  evi 
dence  enough  for  this." — Essays  of  an  Americanist,  pp. 
25-27. 


372  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

CERTAIN   FEATURES   OF   AMERICAN    CIVILIZATION    WHICH 
PLAINLY    OPPOSE    THE    BOOK    OF    MORMON. 

i.  The  ancient  Americans  did  not  manufacture  iron. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  peoples  described  in  the  Book 
of  Mormon  are  said  to  have  been  iron  workers  who  did 
not  use  stone  at  all  in  the  manufacture  of  their  tools  and 
weapons,  and  who  were  as  far  advanced  as  the  civilized 
nations  of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa  in  the  time  of  Christ. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  says  of  the  Jaredites :  "And 
they  did  work  in  all  manner  of  ore,  and  they  did  make 
gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and  brass,  and  all  manner  of 
metals." — Ether  4 :  7. 

On  the  use  of  iron  among  the  Nephites,  we  have  the 
following  passages : 

"And  I" — Nephi — "did  teach  my  people  to  build 
buildings:  and  to  work  in  all  manner  of  wood,,  and  of 
iron,  and  of  copper,  and  of  brass,  and  of  steel,  and  of 
gold,  and  of  silver,  and  of  precious  ores,  which  were  in 
great  abundance." — 2  Nephi  4 :  3. 

"And  we  multiplied  exceedingly,  and  spread  upon  the 
face  of  the  land,  and  became  exceeding  rich  in  gold,  and 
;in  silver,  and  in  precious  things,  and  in  fine  workman 
ship  of  wood,  in  buildings,  and  in  machinery,  and  also  in 
iron,  and  copper,  and  brass,  and  steel,  making  all  manner 
of  tools  of  every  kind  to  till  the  ground,  and  weapons  of 
war." — Jarom  i :  4. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  king  Noah  built  many 
elegant  and  spacious  buildings ;  and  he  ornamented  them 
with  fine  work  of  wood,  and  of  all  manner  of  precious 
things,  of  gold,  and  of  silver,  and  of  iron,  and  of  brass, 
and  of  zifif,  and  of  copper." — Mosiah  7 :  2. 

In  proof  of  this  claim  we  are  referred  to  the  fact 
that  certain  South  American  tribes  had  names  for  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


373 


metal  in  their  languages.  "Some  of  the  languages  of 
the  country,  and  perhaps  all,"  says  Baldwin,  in  speaking 
of  Peru,  "had  names  for  iron ;  in  official  Peruvian  it  was 
called  quillay,  and  in  the  old  Chilean  tongue  panilic.  'It 
is  remarkable/  observes  Molina,  'that  iron,  which  had 
been  thought  unknown  to  the  ancient  Americans,  has 
particular  names  in  some  of  their  tongues.'  It  is  not 
easy  to  understand  why  they  had  names  for  this  metal, 
if  they  never  at  any  time  had  knowledge  of  the  metal 
itself." — Ancient  America,  p.  248. 

Elders  Etzenhouser  and  Stebbins  also  mention  the 
finding  of  certain  iron  and  steel  tools  in  the  mounds  of 
North  America  as  corroborating  these  passages  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon.  These  finds  consisted  of  the  remains 
of  iron,  and  perhaps  steel,  knives,  part  of  a  steel  bow, 
etc.  Mr.  Stebbins  gives  the  destructiveness  of  rust  as 
the  reason  why  more  of  such  implements  have  not  been 
found.  He  says:  "Of  course  this  fact  of  the  speedy 
decay  of  iron  and  steel  is  sufficient  reason  why  weapons 
and  tools  that  were  used  by  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites 
have  not  been  found  by  us.  But  the  testimonies  already 
presented  leave  .no  room  for  saying  that  the  Book  of 
Mormon  is  false  in  saying  that  those  ancients  did  have 
full  knowledge  and  use  of  iron  and  steel  in  those  ancient 
times." — Lectures,  p.  278. 

But,  after  nearly  a  hundred  years  of  research,  our 
archaeologists  have  decided  that  these  evidences  are  in 
sufficient  to  establish  the  claim  that  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  were  workers  in  iron.  The  mere  fact  that  some  of 
the  South  American  tribes  had  names  for  the  metal 
proves  nothing,  as  these  names  may  have  been  invented 
in  a  number  of  ways.  They  may  have  been  coined  at  the 
time  these  tribes  first  saw  the  iron  implements  of  the 
whites,  or,  what  is  more  probable,  they  may  have  been 


374  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

applied  to  the  metal  in  its  crude  state.  As  iron  ore  is 
found  in  all  parts  of  America,  and  as  some  of  the  tribes 
are  known  to  have  worked  it  into  implements  by  a 
process  of  chipping  and  grinding,  this  latter  seems  the 
most  reasonable  explanation  of  the  presence  of  these 
names  in  the  vocabularies  of  certain  tribes.  Nothing  can 
be  better  established  than  that  the  Peruvians  did  not  use 
manufactured-iron  tools  and  implements. 

As  for  the  iron  articles  in  the  mounds  of  North 
America,  instead  of  proving  that  the  Mound  Builders 
were  iron  workers,  they  prove  that  those  mounds  in 
which  they  have  been  found  have  been  erected  within 
historic  times.  These  tools  and  implements  bear  so  many 
marks  of  European  workmanship  that  this  can  no  longer 
be  either  successfully  denied  or  reasonably  doubted.  The 
following  account  from  Professor  Thomas,  of  the  rind 
ing  of  an  old-fashioned  case-knife  in  a  mound  in  Ten 
nessee,  in  the  "Twelfth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,"  1  will  make  this  plain : 

"Suppose,  for  example,  that  a  mound  is  found  in 
Tennessee,  which  in  appearance,  construction  and  con 
tents,  with  a  single  exception,  is  in  every  respect  pre 
cisely  like  those  attributed  to  the  so-called  Veritable 
Mound  Builders,'  and  that  this  single  exception  is  an 
ordinary,  old-fashioned,  steel-bladed  'case-knife'  with  a 
bone  handle,  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  tumulus,  where 
it  could  not  reasonably  be  attributed  to  an  intrusive 
burial,  must  we  conclude  that  the  Veritable  Mound 
Builders'  manufactured  knives  of  this  class?  Yet  a  case 
precisely  of  this  kind  in  every  particular  occurred  during 
the  investigation  carried  on  by  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology 
in  1884." 

1  See  also  "Ohio  Mounds"  and  "Work  in  Mound  Exploration"  for 
similar  relics. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  375 

I  presume  that  there  is  not  a  Latter-day  Saint  who 
will  claim  that  this  bone-handled  case-knife  was  manu 
factured  by  the  Mound  Builders,  and  as  there  are  many 
other  relics  from  the  mounds  as  conclusively  European, 
we  can  reasonably  attribute  the  rest  to  the  same  source. 

The  assertion  that  oxidization  will  account  for  the  al 
most  total  absence  of  iron  tools  and  weapons  among  the 
antiquities  of  America  is  without  good  foundation,  for 
the  conditions  of  many  localities  in  the  Old  World,  where 
iron  tools  and  implements  of  great  age  have  been  found 
in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation,  are  not  as  conducive 
to  the  preservation  of  the  metal  as  are  the  conditions  of 
many  of  the  localities  of  the  New. 

In  the  debris  of  Khorsabad,  Babylonia,  Hilprecht 
tells  us,  Place  discovered  "iron  implements  of  every  de 
scription  in  such  a  fine  state  of  preservation  that  several 
of  them  were  used  at  once  by  his  Arab  workmen." — 
Explorations  in  Bible  Lands,  p.  83.  At  Nimrud  Layard 
found  "a  large  quantity  of  iron  scales  of  Assyrian 
armor"  (Ibid,  p.  106),  besides  "iron  implements  such  as 
picks,  saws,  hammers,  etc."  (Ibid,  p.  124).  While*  at 
Nippur  a  number  of  iron  nails  and  two  iron  bands  were 
taken  from  the  ruins  (Ibid,  p.  505).  Now,  if  the  ancient 
Americans  used  iron  and  steel  exclusively  for  cutting 
tools  and  weapons,  why  can  we  not  find  them,  or  at  least 
their  rust,  in  the  cold,  dry  regions  of  Peru  and  Ari 
zona  ?  In  both  these  countries  even  vegetable  matter  has 
been  preserved  for  untold  centuries.  In  Peru  we  find 
not  only  the  preserved  corpses  of  the  ancient  inhabitants, 
but  also  such  articles  and  materials  as  cactus  thorns, 
wool,  thread,  locks  of  hair,  pieces  of  cloth  sometimes 
entire,  wooden  needles,  cocoa  leaves  and  shells  entombed 
with  them.  While  in  the  section  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers, 
deposited  with  the  mummies,  have  been  found  such  arti- 


3/6  CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 

cles  and  materials  as  ears  of  corn,  yucca  leaves,  skins, 
pumpkin  shells,  cornmeal,  wooden  spoons  and  cotton 
cloth.  It  i-s  indeed  strange,  if  the  early  inhabitants  of 
those  regions  were  Nephites  and  Gadiantons,  that  their 
more  perishable  possessions  have  been  preserved,  while 
every  vestige  of  their  iron  tools  and  weapons  has  been 
wiped  out. 

We  are  informed  by  good  authorities  that  in  Peru 
stone  was  used  exclusively  by  the  ancient  inhabitants  out 
of  which  to  manufacture  their  surgical  instruments. 
Probably  the  most  complete  collection  of  ancient  crania 
from  that  country  was  that  of  Dr.  Manuel  Antonio 
Muniz,  at  one  time  surgeon-general  of  the  army  of  Peru. 
His  collection  consisted  of  over  a  thousand  crania,  of 
which  nineteen  were  trephined,  several  more  than  once. 
All  of  these  crania,  with  the  exception  of  the  nineteen, 
were  destroyed  a  few  years  ago  in  a  political  disturbance, 
and  these,  with  a  single  exception,  were  placed  in  the 
National  Museum  of  the  United  States  for  preservation. 
In  his  excellent  paper,  "Primitive  Trephining  in  Peru," 
published  in  the  "Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau 
of  American  Ethnology,"  p.  59,  Prof.  W.  J.  McGee  de 
scribes  these  trephined  skulls,  with  others  from  the  same 
country,  and  says  on  the  instruments  used  by  the  ancient 
inhabitants  for  the  purpose  of  performing  this  operation : 
"Putting  the  various  dimensions" — of  the  incisions  made 
in  the  skulls — "together,  they  are  found  to  define  a  blade 
corresponding  with  an  ordinary  stone  knife  or  spearhead, 
or  with  an  arrowpoint  attached  to  a  short  haft,  while  the 
dimensions  are  inconsistent  with  those  possessed  by  any 
known  cutting  instrument  of  metal.  Considering  next 
the  longitudinal  striae  in  the  sides  of  the  kerfs,  it  appears 
that  they  would  naturally  and  necessarily  be  produced  by 
the  reciprocal  operation  of  a  knife  or  spearhead  chipped 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


377 


from  stone  of  coarse  texture,  or  of  such  structure  as  to 
give  a  splintery  fracture,  and  that  these  features  would 
not  be  produced  by  any  known  single-point  tool  of  metal, 
polished  stone,  tooth  or  shell.  Accordingly,  the  detailed 
features  displayed  by  the  collection  afford  practically 
conclusive  evidence  that  the  incising  instrument  was  a 
stone  blade  of  common  form  and  character.  There  is 
absolutely  no  suggestion  in  any  of  the  specimens  that  the 
kerfs  were  produced  by  any  other  kind  of  tool,  either  of 
other  material  than  stone  or  of  other  form  than  a  blunt, 
single-tip  blade." 

Peru  presents  to  us  a  number  of  imposing  ruins  built 
of  colossal  stones.  How  these  stones  could  have  been 
prepared  without  steel  tools  has  been  the  wonder  of 
archaeologists.  Elder  Phillips,  in  his  tract,  "The  Book  of 
Mormon  Verified,"  p.  15,  asks:  "How  could  such  works 
be  hewn  from  stone  without  iron  tools?"  And  then  sar 
castically  exclaims :  "Perhaps  they  did  it  with  their  finger 
nails!"  That  they  did  it  with  neither  iron  tools  nor  yet 
with  their  finger  nails  we  know.  On  their  substitute  for 
steel  Prescott  writes:  "The  natives  were  unacquainted 
with  the  use  of  iron,  though  the  soil  was  largely  impreg 
nated  with  it.  The  tools  used  were  of  stone,  or  more 
frequently  of  copper.  But  the  material  on  which  they 
relied  for  the  execution  of  their  most  difficult  tasks  was 
formed  by  combining  a  very  small  portion  of  tin  with 
copper.  This  composition  gave  a  hardness  to  the  metal 
which  seems  to  have  been  little  inferior  to  that  of  steel." 
— Conquest  of  Peru,  Vol.  I.,  p.  92. 

That  the  ancient  Peruvians  did  not  use  iron  and  steel 
tools  is  now  conceded.  Says  Bancroft:  "Iron  ore  is  very 
abundant  in  Peru,  but  the  only  evidence  that  iron  was 
used  is  the  difficulty  of  executing  the  native  works  of 
excavation  and  cutting  stone  without  it,  and  the  fact  that 


378  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

the  metal  had  a  name  in  the  native  language.  No  traces 
of  it  have  ever  been  found." — Native  Races,  Vol.  IV., 
p.  794. 

Passing  up  into  the  land  of  the  Mayas,  we  find  no 
evidence  whatever  that  this  people,  or  any  other  who 
inhabited  that  region,  used  the  metal.  One  of  the  strong 
est  evidences  of  this  is  that  the  hard,  flinty  spots  in  the 
stones  from  which  their  statues  were  carved  are  left 
uncut.  "That  iron  and  steel  were  not  used  for  cutting 
implements,"  says  Bancroft,  "is  clearly  proved  by  the 
fact  that  hard,  flinty  spots  in  the  soft  stone  of  the  statues 
are  left  uncut,  in  some  instances  where  they  interfere 
with  the  details  of  the  sculpture." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
IV.,  p.  102. 

He  adds  that  the  chay-stone  points  found  in  the  ruins 
are  sufficiently  hard  to  work  the  soft  material. 

Dellenbaugh  says:  "So  far  no  prehistoric  iron  has 
been  found  in  the  ruins  of  Yucatan." — North  Americans. 
of  Yesterday,  p.  81. 

Nadaillac  says  of  the  remains  of  Chiapas  and  Yuca 
tan:  "Hieroglyphics,  true  conventional  signs,  mark  then 
a  period  of  human  evolution.  They  are  met  with  on  the 
monuments  of  Chiapas  as  on  those  of  Yucatan;  on  the 
walls  of  Palenque  or  Copan  as  on  those  of  Chichen  Itza 
or  Quirigua ;  they  were  sculptured  or  engraved  on  gran 
ite  or  on  porphyry,  with  quartzite  and  obsidian  imple 
ments.  Iron,  we  repeat,  was  absolutely  unknown;  no 
where  do  we  find  it  mentioned,  and  nowhere  do  we  meet 
with  the  characteristic  rust  which  is  the  undeniable  proof 
of  its  presence." — Prehistoric  America,  pp.  377,  378. 

At  the  time  of  the  Conquest  the  Mexicans,  Prescott 
tells  us,  "used  only  copper  instruments,  with  an  alloy  of 
tin,  and  a  siliceous  powder,  to  cut  the  hardest  stones,  and 
some  of  them  of  enormous  dimensions."  He  adds :  "This 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


379 


fact,  with  the  additional  circumstance  that  only  similar 
tools  have  been  found  in  Central  America,  strengthens 
the  conclusion  that  iron  was  neither  known  there  nor  in 
ancient  Egypt." — Conquest  of  Mexico,  Vol.  III.,  p.  406. 
As  the  Mexicans  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest  used  only 
these  simple  tools,  and  as  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  pre 
historic  use  of  iron,  we  are  justified  in  believing  that 
their  early  ancestors  had  no  others. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  a  few  iron  implements 
have  been  found  in  the  mounds,  all  archaeologists,  of  any 
note  whatever,  declare  that  the  Mound  Builders  did  not 
use  this  metal. 

"He" — the  Ohio  Mound  Builder — "failed  to  grasp 
the  idea  of  ...  the  use  of  metal  (except  in  the  cold 
state)." — Primitive  Man  in  Ohio,  p.  200. 

"The  Mound  Builders  were  acquainted  with  several 
of  the  metals,  and  had  their  implements  and  ornaments 
of  copper;  silver  in  the  form  of  ornaments  is  occasionally 
found ;  galena  occurs  in  considerable  quantities,  while  no 
trace  of  iron  has  been  discovered." — The  Mound  Build 
ers,  p.  72. 

»  "There  is  no  evidence  that  the  use  of  iron  was  known, 
except  the  extreme  difficulty  of  clearing  forests  and  carv 
ing  stone  with  implements  of  stone  and  soft  copper." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  779. 

"Iron  and  bronze  appear  to  have  been  practically  un 
known  to  them,  and  in  no  part  of  a  vast  territory  they 
occupied  have  excavations  revealed  the  existence  or  the 
use  of  any  metal  but  native  copper,  with  its  associated 
silver,  gold  and  a  few  fragments  of  meteoric  iron." — 
Prehistoric  America,  p.  129. 

"The  use  of  iron  as  a  metal  was  unknown  in  America 
previous  to  the  discovery  by  Columbus." — American 
Archaeology,  p.  n. 


380  CUMORAH   REVISITED  ' 

2.  The  ancient  Americans  did  not  have  the  horse. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  declares  that  the  Jaredites  and 
Nephites  had  the  horse  and  other  domestic  animals. 

Of  the  former,  Ether  says:  "And  the  Lord  began 
again  to  take  the  curse  from  off  the  land,  and  the  houre 
of  Emer  did  prosper  exceedingly  under  the  reign  of 
Emer;  and  in  the  space  of  sixty  and  two  years,  they  had 
become  exceeding  strong,  insomuch  that  they  became  ex 
ceeding  rich,  having  all  manner  of  fruit,  and  of  grain, 
and  of  silks,  and  of  fine  linen,  and  of  gold,  and  of  silver, 
and  of  precious  things,  and  also  all  manner  of  cattle,  of 
oxen,  and  cows,  and  of  sheep,  and  of  swine,  and  of 
goats,  and  also  many  other  kind  of  animals  which  were 
useful  for  the  food  of  man;  and  they  also  had  horses, 
and  asses,  and  there  were  elephants,  and  cureloms,  and 
cumoms:  all  of  which  were  useful  unto  man,  and  more 
especially  the  elephants,  and  cureloms,  and  cumoms." — 
Ether  4 :  3. 

After  the  extermination  of  the  Jaredites  these  domes 
tic  animals  became  wild,  and  when  the  Nephites  entered 
Peru  they  are  said  to  have  found  in  the  wilderness  "both 
the  cow,  and  the  ox,  and  the  ass,  and  the  horse,  and  the 
goat,  and  the  wild  goat,  and  all  manner  of  wild  animals, 
which  were  for  the  use  of  men." — i  Nephi  5 : 45.  See 
also  Enos  i :  6,  Alma  12:  n  and  Alma  12:  24. 

To  make  it  appear  to  their  readers  that  these  refer 
ences  relative  to  the  use  of  the  horse  by  the  civilized 
nations  of  ancient  America  are  confirmed  by  scientific 
research,  Mormon  writers1  hand  out  the  following  quo 
tations  from  geologists : 

"In  North  America  ...  in  the  Champlain  period  there 
were  great  elephants  and  mastodons,  oxen,  horses,  stags, 


"Stebbins,"  p.  279.     "Etzenhouser,"  pp.  23,  24.     "Blair,"  p.   166. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


38i 


beaver,  and  some  edentates  in  quartenary  North  America, 
unsurpassed  by  any  in  the  world." — /.  D.  Dana,  LL.  D., 
in  "Text-book  of  Geology,"  p.  319. 

"We  know  that  the  equine  type  of  quadrupeds  existed 
in  America  from  the  period  of  the  Eocene.  We  are,  in 
fact,  acquainted  with  twenty-one  species  of  horse-like 
animals,  and  the  genus  of  true  horses  has  been  traced 
down  to  the  times  preceding  the  present." — Professor 
Winchell,  in  "Evolution,"  p.  82. 

"Seven  species  of  rhinoceros  existed  on  the  plains  of 
Colorado;  twenty-seven  species  of  horses  also  cropped 
the  herbage  of  those  vast  savannas,  varying  in  size  from 
that  of  our  domestic  variety,  down  to  that  of  a  New 
Foundland  dog." — Professor  Hayden,  in  "Explorations 
of  the  West" 

If  our  Mormon  friends  will  grant  that  the  Jaredites 
and  Nephites  were  here  in  the  "Champlain  period,"  or 
before  that  in  the  period  of  the  "Eocene,"  we  will  grant 
that  they  could  have  had  horses  in  abundance,  but  until 
this  concession  is  made  we  shall  feel  ourselves  justified 
in  denying  that  these  quotations  in  any  way  corroborate 
the  claim  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

No  one  who  has  studied  geology  will  deny  that  in  the 
earlier  epochs  the  horse  was  an  inhabitant  of  this  conti 
nent  along  with  many  other  species  now  extinct.  And  it 
is  also  probable  that  the  horse  and  man  were  coexistent 
for  sometime  after  the  latter 's  arrival.  Thus  much  I 
concede.  But  that  the  horse  was  here  when  man  had 
developed  himself  into  a  semi-civilized  being,  and  at  the 
time  those  cities  which  have  been  attributed  to  the  Jared 
ites  and  Nephites  were  erected,  I  most  emphatically  deny. 
For  some  unknown  cause  the  horse  long  ago  became 
extinct  on  the  western  continent,  and  remained  so  until 
the  coming  of  the  Europeans.  "There  is  no  doubt,"  says 


382  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Brinton,  "but  that  the  horse  existed  on  the  continent  con 
temporaneously  with  postglacial  man;  and  some  palaeon 
tologists  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  European  and  Asian 
horses  were  descendants  of  the  American  species;  but 
for  some  mysterious  reason  the  genus  became  extinct  in 
the  New  World  many  generations  before  its  discovery/' 
— The  American  Race,  p.  50. 

That  it  was  not  employed  as  a  beast  of  burden  by 
the  builders  of  the  structures  of  Peru,  Central  America 
and  the  Mississippi  Valley  is  made  evident  by  the  absence 
of  its  remains  among  the  ruins  and  of  its  carved  form  on 
any  of  the  ancient  statuary. 

"The  builders" — of  the  mounds — "had  no  beasts  of 
burden.  These  large  structures  were,  therefore,  built  by 
man  unaided." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  85. 

"The  mound  builders  had  neither  iron  nor  steel  of 
which  to  form  spades  and  shovels,  nor  had  they  beasts 
of  burden  to  assist  in  the  transportation  of  material." — 
American  Archaeology,  p.  61. 

"The  Amerinds  of  North  America  as  a  race  possessed 
no  beast  of  burden  but  the  dog.  .  .  .  The  Amerinds 
encountered  on  the  plains  of  Texas  in  1540  by  Coronado 
were  using  the  dog,  just  as  they  afterwards  used  the 
horse,  for  transporting  tents  and  tent-poles." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  pp.  276,  277. 

3.  The  ancient  Americans  did  not  possess  the  domes 
ticated  cereals  of  the  Old  World. 

Mosiah  says  of  the  Nephites :  "And  we  began  to  till 
the  ground,  yea,  even  with  all  manner  of  seeds,  with 
seeds  of  corn,  and  of  wheat,  and  of  barley,  and  with 
neas,  and  with  sheum,  and  with  seeds  of  all  manner  of 
fruits ;  and  we  did  begin  to  multiply  and  prosper  in  the 
land." — Mosiah  6:2. 

But  where  is  the  proof  of  this  extraordinary  asser- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


383 


tion  ?  It  seems  very  probable  that,  if  the  Americans  had 
once  had  wheat  and  barley,  they  would  not  have  given 
up  their  cultivation  and  use,  and  yet  they  were  not  to  be 
found  in  America  when  the  Europeans  came.  "Wheat, 
rye,  barley,  oats,  millet,  and  rice,"  says  Nadaillac,  "were 
unknown  to  the  Indians." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  4. 

Besides,  no  remains  of  wheat,  barley  or  Oriental 
corn  have  ever  been  found  in  any  of  the  ancient  gran 
aries  or  cemeteries  on  the  continent.  In  Peru,  Arizona 
and  at  Madisonville,  Ohio,  maize,  in  some  instances 
charred,  has  been  taken  from  graves  and  other  places, 
but  not  a  vestige  of  wheat  or  barley  has  ever  been  found. 


384  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

The  Native  Religions  of  America — The  Native  Idea  of  God — 
The  Trinity— Quetzalcoatl— The  Devil— The  Cross— The 
Priesthood — Rites  and  Ceremonies — Cosmogony — Eschatol- 
ogy — Mythology — The  Ancient  Religions  as  Revealed  in  the 
Remains. 

The  ancient  Americans  were  religious  peoples.  This 
is  proved  by  the  great  number  of  their  magnificent  tern-^ 
pies,  sculptured  altars  and  hideous  idols  found  through 
out  the  country.  It  is  estimated  that  at  the  time  of  the 
Conquest  there  were  in  Anahuac  alone  forty  thousand 
temples  and  places  of  worship,  of  which  no  less  than  two 
thousand  were  in  the  City  of  Mexico ;  while  Pizarro 
found  in  Cuzco,  the  capital  of  Peru,  between  three  and 
four  hundred,  chief  of  which  was  the  temple  of  the  sun, 
which  was  so  lavishly  ornamented  with  the  precious 
metal  that  it  was  given  the  name  of  the  "Place  of  Gold." 
In  addition  to  these  centers  of  primitive  worship  we  have 
scores  of  others,  prominent  among  them  being  Pachaca- 
mac  and  the  Island  of  Titicaca  in  Peru,  Palenque  in 
Chiapas  and  Cholula  and  Teotihuacan  in  Mexico. 

Throughout  the  entire  continent  the  native  races  held 
certain  fundamental  religious  beliefs  in  common.  All 
American  tribes,  with  probably  not  an  exception,  held  as 
sacred  the  number  4,  which  answered  to  the  four  car 
dinal  points  from  whence  come  the  fertilizing  showers ; 
a  belief  in,  and  a  fear  of,  unseen  spirits  seems  to  have 
pervaded  universally  the  native  mind,  while  the  notion  of 
the  former  appearance  of  culture  heroes,  and  the  cultural 
improvement  attending  their  appearance,  was  found  not 
only  among  the  more  civilized  tribes,  but  also  among 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


385 


many  who  are  not  classed  as  civilized.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  we  trace  the  religious  conceptions  and  practices 
of  the  red  race  further,  we  find  them  differing  to  an 
astonishing  degree,  so  that,  instead  of  one  system,  we 
find  them  presenting  many  systems  differing  in  their 
deities,  in  the  organization  of  their  priesthoods,  in  their 
conceptions  of  the  after  life ,  and  in  their  rites  and  cere 
monies. 

The  lowest  form  of  theism  in  America  was  fetichism ; 
the  highest,  that  form  of  polytheism  known  as  henothe- 
ism,  which  is  defined  as  "the  worship  of  the  nature 
powers  as  personified,  but  making  some  one  of  these 
powers  the  chief  object  of  worship  and  ascribing  to  it  a 
personal  character,  but  also  personifying  other  nature 
powers  and  making  them  subordinate." '  Between  these 
wide  extremes  lay  a  broad  field  of  various  grades  and 
diversified  forms  of  religious  thought. 

Says  Nadaillac :  "So  far  as  we  can  judge  at  the  pres 
ent  day,  religious  ideas  were  met  with  amongst  all  the 
American  races,  but  with  the  most  striking  contrasts. 
Some  tribes  had  not  got  beyond  fetichism,  the  most  de 
graded  and  primitive  form  of  worship.  Idolatry,  which 
prevailed  amongst  the  nations  of  Central  America,  was  a 
higher  form;  the  savage  adored  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the 
trees  of  the  forest,  the  waters  of  the  spring,  the  stars  of 
the  firmament,  the  stones  beneath  his  feet;  he  invested 
with  supernatural  power  the  first  object  to  strike  his  eyes 
or  impress  his  imagination.  The  idolater  is  superior  to 
the  fetich  worshiper ;  he  adores  the  god  of  the  sun,  of 
the  sea,  of  the  forest,  of  the  spring;  he  often  clothes 
this  god,  before  whom  he  trembles,  with  a  human  form, 
and  attributes  to  him  the  passions  of  his  own  heart. 


"Myths  and  Symbols,"  p.  4. 


386  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Monotheism,  from  a  purely  philosophical  point  of  view, 
is  a  great  advance.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Aztecs 
adored  an  invisible  god,  Teotl,  the  supreme  master,  but 
this  fact  is  disputed, '  and  everything  goes  to  prove  on 
the  contrary  that  polytheism  existed  amongst  them,  and 
a  very  inferior  polytheism,  too,  to  that,  for  instance, 
which  history  records  among  the  Egyptians  or  the 
Greeks.  The  number  of  secondary  divinities  was  very 
considerable;  every  tribe,  every  family,  every  profession 
had  its  patrons,  and  thought  to  do  honor  to  its  gods  by 
severe  fasts,  prolonged  chastity,  baths — purifications,  and 
often  also  cruel  mortifications." — Prehistoric  America, 
pp.  291,  292. 

Aboriginal   American  worship  may  be   divided   into 
five  stages  or  classes,1  which  are : 

1.  Spirit   worship,   the   worship   of   invisible    spirits, 
which  appears  most  prominently  among  the  fishing  tribes 
of  the  far  north,  the  Tinneh  and  the  Aleuts.    This  form 
of  religion  is  called  shamanism. 

2.  Fetich  worship,  the  worship  of  stones,  trees,  moun 
tains,  etc.     It  appears  extensively  among  the  tribes  of 
the  southwest. 

3.  Animal  worship,  the  worship  of  beasts,  birds  and 
reptiles,  such  as  the  dog,  coyote,  eagle  and  rattlesnake. 
Animal  worship  was  chiefly  the  religion  of  the  hunting 
tribes  of  North  America. 

4.  Sky  worship,  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
and  the  elements  and  phenomena  which  in  the  savage 
mind  are  intimately  associated  with  the  sky.     This  form, 
which  appears  in  all  parts  of  the  New  World,  includes 
the  worship  of  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  thunder,  lightning, 
wind,  the  clouds  and  rain. 

1  Rev.   S.   D.   Peet  differs  slightly  from  this  classification.      See  "Myths 
and   Symbols,"  Chapter  XIII. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


387 


5.  Hero  Worship f  the  worship  of  heroes  and  deified 
men,  found  in  its  highest  form  of  development  among 
the  Aztecs,  Mayas  and  other  advanced  tribes. 

It  is  believed  that  this  classification  is  broad  enough 
to  include  all  the  varied  forms  of  worship  of  the  native 
races  of  this  continent.  These  forms  seldom,  if  ever, 
appear  alone  in  any  one  tribe,  but  are  associated  together, 
although  one  form  may  appear  with  greater  prominence 
than  the  rest. 

On  the  origin  of  the  American  religious  systems 
various  opinions  have  been  expressed,  but  these  may  be 
grouped  together  in  two  general  theories.  One  is  that 
they  are,  either  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  exotic  origin;  the 
other  is  that  they  are  of  indigenous  origin  and  develop 
ment.  By  those  who  hold  to  their  exotic  origin  the  sup 
posed  belief  of  the  Indian  in  a  "Great  Spirit"  and  a 
"Happy  Hunting-ground,"  his  use  of  the  symbolism  of 
the  cross,  his  belief  in  a  flood  or  floods,  and  a  hundred 
other  points  of  resemblance  to  the  beliefs  and  practices 
of  the  Old  World  nations,  are  held  up  as  proof  of  his 
Asiatic,  European  or  African  origin.  But  this  theory 
no  longer  holds  the  assent  of  the  larger  body  of  Ameri 
can  anthropologists.  To  most  of  the  later  students  the 
American  religions,  like  everything  else  pertaining  to  the 
ancient  culture  of  this  continent,  were  of  indigenous 
origin  and  development,  the  points  of  resemblance  prov 
ing,  not  common  origin,  but  common  nature  and  like 
environment.  On  the  similarity  of  the  myths  of  America 
to  those  of  the  Old  World,  Dellenbaugh  writes  as  fol 
lows:  "There  is  in  some  respects  so  great  a  similarity 
between  the  myths  of  the  New  World  and  those  of  the 
Old  that  it  was  at  first  assumed  that  there  must  have 
been  early  communication  with  Europe,  but  more  careful 
analysis  has  shown  that  this  is  but  another  evidence  of 


388  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

what  may  be  called  the  parallelism  of  human  develop 
ment.  Even  where  the  similarity  is  greatest  there  is 
nothing  to  prove  that  the  myths  did  not  originate  inde 
pendently,  and  they  are  merely  the  results  of  similar 
thoughts,  in  similar  stages  of  ignorance,  about  the  sun, 
the  sky  and  natural  forces." — North  Americans  of  Yes 
terday,  p.  396. 

There  are  four  lines  of  evidence  by  which  a  conclu 
sion  on  the  character  of  the  ancient  American  religions 
may  be  arrived  at: 

1.  By  history — by  the  accounts  that  have  been  given 
of  native  worship  by  the  Europeans  who  first  came  in 
contact   with   it.      History,    however,   can   only   give    us 
the  beliefs  and  rites  of  the  American  tribes  since  1492, 
yet  from  them  we  can  draw  some  reasonable  inferences 
as  to  the  character  of  the  religions  of  pre-Columbian 
times. 

2.  By  mythology — by  the  myths  and  traditions  that 
have  been  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation. 
This,    however,    is    not    so    certain,    as    it    is    impossible 
always  to  tell  just  what  is  historical  and  what  is  purely 
mythical. 

3.  By  etymology — by  the  meaning  of  their  terms  for 
god,  heaven,  spirit,  etc.    Such  terms  are  intimately  inter 
woven  into  man's  religious  fabric,  and  the  ideas  that  they 
conveyed  to  the  historic  tribes  will  be  a  clue  which  will 
throw  a  ray  of  light  on  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  their 
ancestors. 

4.  By  archaeology — by  those  relics  which  they  have 
left,  such  as  temples,  altars,  idols,  burial-places,  etc.   This 
is  the  most  certain  of  all  the  ways  of  determining  what 
the  ancient  Americans  believed  and  practiced.   The  struc 
ture  of  their  temples,  the  carvings  on  their  statuary,  the 
forms  of  their  altars  and  the  designs  painted  on  their 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  389 

temple  walls  are  certain  indices  of  their  religious  opin 
ions. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  teaches  that  the  first  Ameri 
cans,  the  Jaredites,  were  monotheists ;  that,  after  their 
destruction,  they  were  followed,  about  600  B.  C.,  by  a 
colony  from  Jerusalem  which  kept  the  law  of  Moses; 
that  this  colony,  soon  after  its  arrival,  divided  into  two 
factions,  the  Nephites  and  Lamanites,  the  first  continu 
ing  in  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  the  second  apostatizing 
therefrom;  that,  at  the  advent  of  Christ,  the  Nephites 
became  Christians,  and  continued  as  such  nearly  down 
to  their  overthrow  in  385  A.  D. ;  while  the  Lamanites, 
with  the  exception  of  during  a  short  period,  continued  a 
sinful  and  vain  people.  This,  in  brief,  is  the  outline  of 
the  religious  history  of  the  ancient  Americans  as  given 
in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

Mormons  tell  us  that  the  Indian's  belief  in  the  "Great 
Spirit,"  his  traditions  of  culture  heroes — who  in  some 
points  resembled  Jesus  Christ — his  knowledge  of  the 
Trinity,  his  fear  of  the  spirit  of  evil,  his  belief  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  future 
rewards  and  punishments,  and  a  "Happy  Hunting- 
ground,"  and  his  practice  of  baptism,  with  many  other 
beliefs  and  ceremonies,  fully  substantiate  the  claim  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon  that  Judaism  and  Christianity  were  the 
religions  of  the  civilized  peoples  in  ancient  times.  But  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  neither  in  the  archaeological 
remains,  nor  in  the  myths  and  traditions,  nor  in  the  relig 
ious  terms,  nor  in  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  historic 
tribes,  is  there  any  evidence  that  the  ancient  Americans 
were  Jews  and  Christians, 


390  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


THE    NATIVE   IDEA   OF   GOD. 

The  popular  conception  of  the  deity  of  the  red  man 
is  that  of  a  personality  to  whom  all  the  tribes  gave  the 
appellation  of  "Great  Spirit."  Novelists  and  poets  have 
used  this  term  until  the  great  majority  of  the  people  are 
wholly  ignorant  of  its  erroneousness.  Even  Catlin,  whose 
interesting  book  on  Indian  life  we  all  read  with  delight, 
says:  "The  first  and  most  striking  fact  amongst  the 
North  American  Indians  that  refers  us  to  the  Jews  is 
that  of  their  worshiping,  in  all  parts,  the  Great  Spirit, 
or  Jehovah,  as  the  Hebrews  were  ordered  to  do  by  divine 
precept,  instead  of  a  plurality  of  gods,  as  the  ancient 
pagans  and  heathens  did,  and  the  idols  of  their  own  for 
mation."  Of  course  the  Mormons  have  profited  by  the 
popular  belief,  and  refer  to  it  as  another  proof  that  the 
Indians  are  descendants  of  the  children  of  Israel,  as 
claimed  in  the  Book  of  Mormon.1  Says  Elder  Stebbins : 
"Their  worship  of  Jehovah,  calling  him  Yohewah,  is 
itself  a  good  assurance  of  their  Hebrew  origin." — Lec 
tures,  p.  244. 

But  nothing  can  be  further  from  the  truth  than  this 
assertion,  as  all  students  of  the  native  American  religions 
know,  for  the  Indian,  using  this  term  in  its  broadest  sense 
as  covering  the  tribes  of  both  North  and  South  America, 
knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the  "Great  Spirit"  or  the 
"Happy  Hunting-ground"  until  he  came  under  the 
preaching  of  the  white  missionary.  Instead,  he  wor- 

1  The  "Book  of  Mormon"  tells  us  that  the  ancient  Americans  believed 
in  this  mythical  being.  "And  then  Ammon  said,  Believest  thou  that  there 
is  a  Great  Spirit?  And  he  said,  Yea.  And  Ammon  said,  This  is  God. 
And  Ammon  said  unto  him  again,  Believest  thou  that  this  Great  Spirit, 
who  is  God,  created  all  things  which  are  in  heaven  and  in  the  earth?  And 
he  said,  Yea,  I  believe  that  he  created  all  things  which  are  in  the  earth; 
but  I  do  not  know  the  heavens"  (Alma  12:  14).  This  is  only  another  of 
those  marks  by  which  the  human  origin  of  the  book  is  betrayed. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  $gi 

shiped  the  wind,  the  earth,  the  sea,  the  waterfall,  the  sun, 
the  volcano  and  deified  animals  and  men. 

Says  Parkman :  "In  no  Indian  language  could  the 
early  missionaries  find  a  word  to  express  the  idea  of 
God.  Manitou  and  Oki  meant  anything  endowed  with 
supernatural  powers,  from  a  snakeskin  or  a  greasy  In 
dian  conjurer  up  to  Manabozho  and  Jouskeha." — The 
Jesuits  in  North  America,  p.  79. 

Says  Brinton :  "Of  monotheism,  either  as  displayed  in 
the  one  personal,  definite  God  of  the  Semitic  races,  or  in 
the  pantheistic  sense  of  the  Brahmins,  there  was  not  a 
single  instance  on  the  American  continent." — Myths,  p. 

69. 

Says  Mrs.  Erminnie  A.  Smith:  "The  'Great  Spirit/ 
so  popularly  and  poetically  known  as  the  god  of  the 
red  man,  and  the  'Happy  Hunting-ground,'  generally 
reported  to  be  the  Indian's  idea  of  a  future  state,  are 
both  of  them  but  their  ready  conception  of  the  white 
man's  God  and  Heaven.  This  is  evident  from  a  careful 
study  of  their  past  as  gleaned  from  the  numerous  myths 
of  their  prehistoric  existence." — Second  Report  Bureau 
American  Ethnology,  pp.  52,  53. 

Says  Mooney :  "In  religion  the  Kiowa  are  polytheists 
and  animists,  deifying  all  the  powers  of  nature  and  pray 
ing  to  each  in  turn,  according  to  the  occasion.  Their 
native  system  has  no  Great  Spirit,  no  heaven,  no  hell, 
although  they  are  now  familiar  with  these  ideas  from 
contact  with  the  whites ;  their  other  world  is  a  shadowy 
counterpart  of  this." — Seventeenth  Report  Bureau  Amer 
ican  Ethnology,  p.  237. 

Says  Gushing  of  the  Zunis:  "That  very  little  distinc 
tion  is  made  between  these  orders  of  life,  or  that  they 
are  at  least  closely  related,  seems  to  be  indicated  by  the 
absence  from  the  entire  language  of  any  general  term 


392  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

for  God." — Second  Report  Bureau  American  Ethnology, 
p.  ii. 

Says  Major  J.  W.  Powell:  "Nations  with  civilized 
institutions,  art  with  palaces,  monotheism  as  the  worship 
of  the  Great  Spirit,  all  vanish  from  the  priscan  condi 
tion  of  North  America  in  the  light  of  anthropologic 
research.  Tribes  with  the  social  institutions  of  kinship, 
art  with  its  highest  architectural  development  exhibited 
in  the  structure  of  communal  dwellings,  and  polytheism 
in  the  worship  of  mythic  animals  and  nature-gods  re 
main." — First  Report  Bureau  American  Ethnology,  p.  69. 

Says  Dellenbaugh :  "They  had  no  understanding  of  a 
single  'Great  Spirit'  till  the  Europeans,  often  uncon 
sciously,  informed  them  of  their  own  belief." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  375. 

The  words  for  God  in  the  American  tongues  origi 
nally  conveyed  no  idea  of  personality  and  unity,  but  sim 
ply  the  mysterious,  the  incomprehensible,  the  wonderful 
and  the  unknown,  and  were  often  rendered  into  English 
by  the  vulgar  term  "medicine."  Brinton,  in  speaking  of 
these  words,  says:  "A  word  is  usually  found  in  their 
languages  analogous  to  none  in  any  European  tongue,  a 
word  comprehending  all  manifestations  of  the  unseen 
world,  yet  conveying  no  sense  of  personal  unity.  It  has 
been  rendered  spirit,  demon,  God,  devil,  mystery,  magic, 
but  commonly  and  rather  absurdly  by  the  English  and 
French  'medicine/  In  the  Al  jonkin  dialects  this  word 
is  manito  and  oki,  in  Iroquois  otkon,  in  the  Hidatsa  hopa; 
the  Dakota  has  wakan,  the  Aztec  teotl,  the  Quichua 
huaca,  and  the  Maya  ku." — Myths,  p.  62.  A  few  years 
ago  a  young  Pottawatamie  informed  me  that  their  word 
manito  might  with  equal  propriety  be  applied  to  Jehovah 
or  a  rattlesnake,  and  when  requested  to  give  its  exact 
meaning  he  replied  wifch  a  wave  of  the  hand :  "It  means 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


393 


simply  the  wonderful,  the  mysterious,  anything  you  can 
not  understand."  This  word,  as  were  also  the  others 
mentioned,  was  applied  to  the  serpent  that  softly  glided 
through  the  grass,  to  the  conjurer  who  performed  some 
trick  the  secret  of  which  was  not  understood,  to  the  noise 
in  the  forest  the  cause  of  which  was  unknown,  to  the 
power  of  the  waterfall,  to  the  cardinal  points  of  the  com 
pass  from  whence  come  the  showers,  and,  after  the 
advent  of  the  Europeans,  to  the  white  man's  God,  his 
spirit  and  his  devil.  Whatever  the  Indian  could  not 
understand  was  manito,  wakan  or  otkon. 

Among  nearly  all  the  American  tribes  the  gods  were 
mythic  animals  and  men  and  the  elements  and  phenomena 
of  nature. 

The  dog,  for  instance,  was  the  chief  deity  in  the 
province  of  Huanca  in  Peru,  and  when  the  Inca  Pacha- 
cutec  carried  his  arms  into  that  country  he  found  its 
image  installed  in  the  temple  as  the  supreme  object  of 
worship.  Likewise  in  North  America  the  coyote  was 
worshiped  by  the  Shoshones,  who  called  it  their  ancestor, 
and  the  Nahuas  paid  it  such  high  honor  that  they  erected 
for  it  a  temple  of  its  own,  with  a  large  congregation  of 
priests  set  apart  to  its  service,  carved  its  image  in  stone 
and  gave  it  an  elaborate  funeral  when  dead.1  Michabo, 
or  the  Great  Hare,  was  worshiped  by  the  Algonkin  tribes 
as  their  common  ancestor.  Brinton  says  of  him :  "From 
the  remotest  wilds  of  the  northwest  to  the  coast  of  the 
Atlantic,  from  the  southern  boundaries  of  Carolina  to 
the  cheerless  swamps  of  Hudson  Bay,  the  Algonkins 
were  never  tired  of  gathering  around  the  winter  fire  and 
repeating  the  story  of  Manibozho  or  Michabo,  the  Great 
Hare.  With  entire  unanimity  their  various  branches,  the 


"Myths,"   pp.    160,    161. 


394  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Powhatans  of  Virginia,  the  Lenni  Lenape  of  the  Dela 
ware,  the  warlike  hordes  of  New  England,  the  Ottawas 
of  the  far  north,  and  the  western  tribes  perhaps  with 
out  exception,  spoke  of  'this  chimerical  beast/  as  one  of 
the  old  missionaries  calls  it,  as  their  common  ancestor. 
The  totem  or  clan  which  bore  his  name  was  looked  up 
to  with  peculiar  respect." — Myths,  p.  193. 

The  serpent  was  the  object  of  worship  and  respect 
among  the  Quiches.  Their  wind  god  Hurakan  was  other 
wise  called  the  Strong  Serpent,  who  controlled  the  power 
of  the  storm.  Such  names  as  Quetzalcoatl,  Gucumatz 
and  Kukulkan  signify  "Bird  Serpent,"  and  these  gods 
were  deities  of  the  wind  or  air  in  Mexico,  Guatemala 
and  Yucatan.  In  North  America  the  rattlesnake  was 
looked  upon  with  special  reverence  by  the  Algonkins, 
Iroquois,  Creeks,  Cherokees  and,  in  fact,  most  other 
tribes.  It  also  appears  extensively  in  the  symbolisms  of 
the  Mound  Builders.1 

The  bird  was  worshiped  in  all  parts  of  America.  In 
the  northern  continent  the  Algonkins  attributed  to  it  the 
making  of  the  winds  and  claimed  that  the  clouds  were 
but  the  spreading  of  its  wings,  while  in  both  Mexico  and 
Peru  there  were  colleges  of  augurs  whose  duty  it  was  to 
divine  the  future  by  watching  the  course  and  interpreting 
songs  of  birds.  The  eagle  was  paid  special  honor  by  the 
Creeks,  Cherokees,  Dakotas,  Natchez,  Arkansas  and 
Zuni.  The  owl  was  the  god  of  the  dead  with  the  Nahuas, 
Quiches,  Mayas,  Peruvians,  Araucanians  and  Algonkins. 
And  the  dove  was  held  in  high  repute  by  the  Hurons, 
Mandans  and  Mexicans,  who  believed  that  it  was  inhab 
ited  by  the  souls  of  the  dead.2 

On  the  animal  worship  of  the  Indian  tribes  Powell 

1  "Myths,"  p.    130. 
8  "Myths,"  p.   129. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


395 


says :  "Many  of  the  Indians  of  North  America,  and  many 
of  South  America,  and  many  of  the  tribes  of  Africa,  are 
found  to  be  zootheists.  Their  supreme  gods  are  animals 
— tigers,  bears,  wolves,  serpents,  birds." — First  Report 
Bureau  American  Ethnology,  p.  33. 

Says  Dellenbaugh:  'The  religion  of  most  of  the 
Amerinds  was  zootheism — that  is,  their  gods  were  deified 
men  and  animals." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p. 

375- 

The  Indians  also  worshiped  the  elements  and  phe 
nomena  of  nature.  The  ancient  Creeks  worshiped  the 
wind  under  the  name  of  isakita  immissi,  "The  Master  of 
Breath."  Since  the  advent  of  the  missionary  among  them 
this  term  is  applied  to  the  true  God.  Parallel  with  this  is 
the  Choctaw  hushtoli,  "The  Storm  Wind,"  and  the  Chero 
kee  oonaivleh  unggi,  "The  Eldest  of  the  Winds."  The 
Eskimo  still  pray  to  sillam  innua,  "Owner  of  the  Winds," 
as  the  highest  existence,  and  Brinton  says  of  the  four 
demigods  that  so  frequently  appear  in  the  mythology  of 
Central  America,  Mexico  and  Peru :  "The  ancient  heroes 
and  demigods,  who,  four  in  number,  figure  in  all  these 
antique  traditions,  were  not  men  of  flesh  and  blood,  but 
the  invisible  currents  of  air  who  brought  the  fertilizing 
showers." — Myths,  p.  97. 

The  sun  was  originally  worshiped  in  all  parts  of 
America.  Bancroft  says:  "Brasseur  de  Bourbourg, 
Tylor,  Squier  and  Schoolcraft  agree  in  considering  sun- 
worship  the  most  radical  religious  idea  of  all  civilized 
American  religions." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  no. 

Mr.  Lucian  Carr  says  that  "everywhere  in  the  valley 
east  of  the  Mississippi  the  Indian  was  a  sun-worshiper." 
• — Report  Smithsonian  Institution  (1891),  p.  536- 

Mrs.  Erminnie  A.  Smith  says  of  the  Iroquois:  "The 
pagan  Indians  worship  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  thunder, 


396  CVMORAH  REVISITED 

and  other  spirits  rather  vaguely  defined." — Second  Re 
port  Bureau  American  Ethnology,  p.  112. 

Mooney  says  of  the  Kiowa:  "The  greatest  of  the 
Kiowa  gods  is  the  sun." — Seventeenth  Report  Bureau 
American  Ethnology,  p.  237. 

The  Hurons  claimed  that  their  chiefs  descended  from 
.the  sun,  and  that  the  sacred  pipe  was  presented  by  that 
luminary  to  the  western  Pawnees  and  was  by  them 
transmitted  to  the  other  tribes.  The  Mandans  and  Mini- 
tarees  had  a  similar  tradition.  The  Iroquois  also  wor 
shiped  the  sun,  as  did  also  the  Natchez,  who  erected 
temples  and  offered  sacrifices  in  its  honor.  Of  other 
tribes  who  held  this  luminary  in  special  veneration  are 
the  Delawares,  Osages,  Sioux,  Araucanians,  Peruvians 
and  Creeks.1 

The  semi-civilized  tribes,  who  were  more  advanced  in 
their  theistic  ideas,  had  large  pantheons.  In  addition  to 
a  worship  of  the  sun,  moon,  stars  and  thunder,  the  Peru 
vians  invoked  Papapconopa  to  insure  a  good  harvest 
of  sweet  potatoes;  Caullama,  the  protector  of  flocks; 
Chichic,  the  god  of  landed  property,  and  Lacarvillca,  the 
god  of  irrigation.  The  more  ignorant  also  worshiped 
the  condor,  puma,  owl  and  serpent  and  such  products  of 
the  earth  as  maize  and  potatoes.  By  some  even  the  dead 
were  invoked  as  the  protectors  of  the  family.  They 
offered  flowers,  incense  and  such  animals  as  tapirs  and 
serpents  to  their  gods,  and  on  special  occasions  a  child 
or  a  virgin  was  slain  before  the  image  of  the  sun.2 

The  Mexicans  also  are  to  be  specially  noticed  on  ac 
count  of  the  size  of  their  pantheon.  Some  have  thought 
that  their  supreme  god  was  Teotl,  the  "Supreme  Creator 
and  Lord  of  the  Universe,"  but,  on  the  contrary,  Brinton 


1  "American   Antiquities,"    pp.    352,    353. 

2  "Prehistoric  America,"   pp.   436,   437. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


397 


and  others  hold  that  this  term,  like  manito  and  wakan, 
was  only  an  expression  for  the  mysterious  and  supernat 
ural  and  did  not  convey  the  idea  of  personality.  But,  be 
this  as  it  may,  below  Teotl  were  other  orders  or  gods,  and 
this  refutes  the  claim  that  they  were  monotheistic  in  their 
worship.  "Rightly  does  Wuttke  contend,"  says  J.  G. 
Muller,  "against  any  conception  of  this  deity  as  a  mono 
theistic  one,  the  polytheism  of  the  people  being  consid 
ered — for  polytheism  and  monotheism  will  not  be  yoked 
together;  even  if  a  logical  concordance  were  found,  the 
inner  spirits  of  the  principles  of  the  two  would  still  be 
opposed  to  each  other." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  183. 

Prescott  says :  "The  Aztecs  recognized  the  existence 
of  a  supreme  Creator  and  Lord  of  the  universe.  But 
the  idea  of  unity — of  a  being,  with  whom  volition  is 
action,  who  has  no  need  of  inferior  ministers  to  execute 
his  purposes — was  too  simple,  or  too  vast,  for  their 
understandings ;  and  they  sought  relief,  as  usual,  in  a 
plurality  of  deities,  who  presided  over  the  elements,  the 
changes  of  the  seasons,  and  the  various  occupations  of 
man.  Of  these  there  were  thirteen  principal  deities,  and 
more  than  two  hundred  inferior ;  to  each  of  whom  some 
special  day,  or  appropriate  festival,  was  consecrated." — 
Conquest  of  Mexico,  Vol.  I.,  p.  57. 

Gallatin  says :  "Their  mythology,  as  far  as  we  know 
it,  presents  a  great  number  of  unconnected  gods,  without 
apparent  system  or  unity  of  design.  It  exhibits  no  evi 
dence  of  metaphysical  research  or  imaginative  powers. 
Viewed  only  as  a  development  of  the  intellectual  faculties 
of  man,  it  is  in  every  respect  vastly  inferior  to  the  relig 
ious  systems  of  Egypt,  India,  Greece  or  Scandinavia.  If 
imported,  it  must  have  been  from  some  barbarous  coun 
try,  and  brought  directly  from  such  country  to  Mexico, 
since  no  traces  of  a  similar  worship  are  found  in  the 


398  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

more  northern  parts  of  America." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
III.,  p.  186. 

And,  recollect,  the  Mexican  system  was  the  most 
highly  developed  of  any  on  the  American  continent;  yet, 
in  the  face  of  all  this,  we  are  coolly  met  with  the  as 
sertion  that  the  Indian,  "in  all  parts,"  was  a  worshiper  of 
the  Great  Spirit  of  Jehovah. 

Viscomte  de  Bussiere  says:  "The  population  of  Cen 
tral  America,  although  they  had  preserved  the  vague 
notion  of  a  superior  eternal  God  and  creator,  known  by 
the  name  of  Teotl,  had  an  Olympus  as  numerous  as  that 
of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
III.,  p.  187. 

Next  to  Teotl,  the  principal  god  of  the  Aztecs,  if  a 
god  at  all,  comes  Tezcatlipoca,  "Shining  Mirror,"  who 
was  regarded  as  the  creator  of  heaven  and  earth  and  the 
rewarder  of  the  just  and  punisher  of  evil-doers.  The 
god  of  the  dead  was  Mictlanhuatl,  "Rational  Owl,"  with 
whom  was  associated  the  goddess  Mictlancihuatl.  Ome- 
teuchtli,  "Twice  Lord,"  and  Omecihuatl,  "Twice  Wo 
man,"  were  divinities  who  watched  over  the  world  from 
an  enchanted  city  in  the  heavens.  The  sun  and  moon 
were  deified  under  the  names  Tonathiu  and  Meztli. 
Quetzalcoatl,  "Feathered  Serpent,"  was  their  god  of  the 
air.  The  Aztec  Neptune  was  Tlaloc,  and  their  terrible 
god  of  war  was  Huitzilopochtli,  or  Mexitli,  whose  altars 
so  often  ran  with  Spanish  blood  at  the  time  of  the  Con 
quest.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the  more  important  of 
the  Mexican  divinities. 

The  chief  divinities  of  the  Mayas  were  Hunab  Ku, 
"The  Only  God,"  the  Supreme  Being,  the  Creator,  the 
Invisible  One ;  Ixazaluoh,  his  spouse,  goddess  of  weav 
ing;  Itzamna,  "Dew  of  the  Morning,"  the  personification 
of  the  East  or  Rising  Sun;  Kukulkan,  the  Mayan  Quet- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


399 


zalcoatl,  the  personification  of  the  West  or  Setting  Sun; 
Kin  Ich,  their  divinity  of  Noontide;  Ix  Kan  Leom,  "The 
Spider  Web,"  goddess  of  medicine  and  childbirth;  the 
Bacabs,  her  four  sons,  gods  of  the  four  cardinal  points; 
Yum  Chac,  god  of  rain;  Yum  Kaak,  god  of  harvest; 
Cum  Ahau,  "Lord  of  the  Vase;"  Zuhuy  Kak,  "Virgin 
Fire,"  patroness  of  infants;  Zuhuy  Dzip,  "Virgin  of 
Dressed  Animals,"  their  goddess  of  hunting;  Ix  Tabai, 
another  hunting  goddess  and  goddess  of  those  who 
hanged  themselves,  etc.1  "The  Mayas,"  says  Bancroft, 
"were  not  behind  their  neighbors  in  the  number  of  their 
lesser  and  special  divinities,  so  that  there  was  scarcely  an 
animal  or  imaginary  creature  which  they  did  not  repre 
sent  by  sacred  images." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  463. 

I  am  sure  that  the  above-given  facts  are  sufficient  to 
convince  the  reader  that  his  long-cherished  conception  of 
the  Indian's  deity  as  the  "Great  Spirit"  is  groundless, 
and  also  that  they  are  sufficient  to  convince  him  that  the 
theistic  conceptions  of  the  American  Indian  were  of  the 
crudest  type,  closely  connecting  him  with  the  forms,  ele 
ments  and  phenomena  of  that  nature  with  which  he  was 
familiar. 

On  the  whole  continent  there  are  only  two  instances 
where  the  worship  of  an  immaterial  god  was  instituted: 
among  the  Quichuas  of  Peru  and  the  Nahuas  of  Tezcuco. 
These,  Brinton  says,  "as  the  highest  conquests  of  Ameri 
can  natural  religions  deserve  special  mention."  A  careful 
study  of  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  institution 
of  this  form  of  worship  in  these  countries  shows  that  it 
was  not  a  belief  handed  down  from  generation  to  gener 
ation  from  ages  long  past,  nor  yet  a  development  out  of 
the  old  religions,  but  a  truth  unconsciously  stumbled  on 

1  "Mayan  Primer,"  p.   37, 


400  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

to  by  two  men  who  found  these  religions  inadequate  to 
satisfy  the  longings  of  the  human  heart  and  the  reason 
ings  of  the  human  mind. 

The  monotheistic  worship  of  Peru  was  instituted  by 
the  Inca  Yupanqui,  who  in  1440,  before  a  grand  religious 
council  held  at  the  dedication  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun, 
is  said  to  have  made  the  following  address :  "Many  say 
that  the  sun  is  the  maker  of  all  things.  But  he  who 
makes  should  abide  by  what  he  has  made.  Now,  many 
things  happen  when  the  sun  is  absent;  therefore  he  can 
not  be  the  universal  creator.  And  that  he  is  alive  at  all 
is  doubtful,  for  his  trips  do  not  tire  him.  Were  he  a 
living  thing,  he  would  grow  weary  like  ourselves;  were 
he  free,  he  would  visit  other  parts  of  the  heavens.  He  is 
like  a  tethered  beast  who  makes  a  daily  round  under  the 
eye  of  a  master ;  he  is  like  an  arrow,  which  must  go 
whither  it  is  sent,  not  whither  it  wishes.  I  tell  you  that 
he,  our  Father  and  Master  the  Sun,  must  have  a  lord  and 
master  more  powerful  than  himself,  who  constrains  him 
to  his  daily  circuit  without  pause  or  rest." — Myths,  p.  72. 

The  other  instance  of  the  introduction  of  monothe 
istic  ideas  into  the  native  religion  was  in  Tezcuco.  Nez- 
ahuatl,  the  lord  of  that  country,  had  long  besought  his 
gods  to  give  him  a  son  to  inherit  his  throne,  but  to  no 
avail.  At  last  in  despair  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed: 
"Verily,  these  gods  that  I  am  adoring,  what  are  they  but 
idols  of  stone  without  speech  or  feeling?  They  could 
not  have  made  the  beauty  of  the  heaven,  the  sun,  the 
moon  and  the  stars  which  adorn  it,  and  which  light  the 
earth  with  its  countless  streams,  its  fountains  and  waters, 
its  trees  and  plants,  and  its  various  inhabitants.  There 
must  be  some  god,  invisible  and  unknown,  who  is  the 
universal  creator.  He  alone  can  console  me  in  my  afflic 
tion  and  take  away  my  sorrow." — Myths,  p.  73, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


401 


In  both  of  these  countries  temples  are  said  to  have 
been  erected  to  this  unknown  god  and  his  worship  insti 
tuted,  but  not  to  the  exclusion  of  the  worship  of  the  other 
gods,  for  in  both  sections  the  old  deities  continued  to 
receive  the  same  adoration  as  before,  and  when  the  Span 
iards  entered  Peru  they  not  only  found  temples  to  these 
deities,  but  they  also  found  the  temple  of  the  new  god 
polluted  by  a  hideous  image  set  up  within  it,  before 
which  the  votaries  paid  their  devotions,  and  by  hideous 
paintings  on  the  walls. 

There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  to  show  that  the 
American  race  ever  held  to  the  belief  in  a  single  Great 
Spirit  analogous  to  the  God  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
religions,  all  reports  to  the  contrary  being  misrepresenta 
tions.  On  the  contrary,  their  gods  were  spirits,  deified 
animals  and  men  and  the  forms,  elements  and  phenomena 
of  nature,  and,  if  we  may  judge  by  their  myths,  carvings 
and  paintings,  they  never  had  any  other. 

THE  MAYAN  TRINITY. 

It  is  contended  by  Lord  Kingsborough  that  the  Mayas 
worshiped  a  Trinity  composed  of  Father,  Son  and  Holy 
Ghost.  He  gets  his  information  from  Torquemada,  De 
Salcar  and  other  early  Spanish  writers.  His  quotation 
from  De  Salcar  is  as  follows:  "The  chiefs  and  men  of 
rank  in  the  province  of  Chiapa  were  acquainted  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  most  holy  Trinity.  They  called  the 
Father  Icona,  the  Son  Bacab,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  Estru- 
ach ;  and  certainly  these  names  resemble  the  Hebrew, 
especially  Estruach  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost  does,  for 
Ruach  in  Hebrew  is  the  Holy  Ghost." — Book  of  Mormon 
Lectures,  pp.  238,  239.  He  claims  that,  according  to  this 
tradition,  Bacab  was  born  of  a  virgin,  Chibirias,  and  was 
afterwards  put  to  death  by  Eopuco,  who  scourged  him, 


402  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

put  a  crown  of  thorns  upon  his  head  and  crucified  him 
by  tying  him  to  a  cross.  He  claims  further  that  the 
tradition  states  that  after  being  dead  three  days  he  came 
to  life  and  ascended  to  the  Father,  following  which 
Estruach  came  and  filled  the  earth  with  whatever  it  stood 
in  need  of. 

This  tradition  is  readily  accepted  by  the  Mormons, 
who  give  it  wide  publicity  in  their  works  as  confirming 
their  belief  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  worshipers 
of  the  true  God.  Dr.  James  E.  Talmadge,  in  his  "Two 
Lectures  on  the  Book  of  Mormon,"  p.  36,  says:  "Many 
traditions  and  some  records,  telling  of  the  predestined 
Christ  and  his  atoning  death,  were  current  among  the 
native  races  of  this  continent  long  prior  to  the  advent  of 
Christian  discoverers  in  recent  centuries.  Indeed,  when 
the  Spaniards  first  invaded  Mexico,  their  Catholic  priests 
found  a  native  knowledge  of  Christ  and  the  Godhead,  so 
closely  corresponding  with  the  doctrines  of  orthodox 
Christianity,  that  they,  in  their  inability  to  account  for 
the  same,  invented  the  theory  that  Satan  had  planted 
among  the  natives  of  the  country  an  imitation  gospel  for 
the  purpose  of  deluding  the  people."  Following  this  he 
gives  the  foregoing  tradition  of  the  Trinity.  Mr.  Steb- 
bins  also  devotes  several  pages  of  his  "Book  of  Mormon 
Lectures"  to  this  and  similar  traditions. 

But  that  such  a  myth  ever  existed  in  the  traditional 
lore  of  the  natives  is  positively  impossible.  This  was 
discovered  long  ago  by  the  students  of  American  tradi 
tions,  and  these  stories  were  given  up  as  spurious.  This 
account,  then,  was  either  invented  by  the  natives  them 
selves  in  order  to  make  their  beliefs  appear  to  conform 
to  the  Christian,  or  else  it  was  invented  by  the  Catholic 
priests.  In  speaking  of  it,  Short  says :  "In  fact,  the  story 
is  the  Apostles'  Creed  without  the  'Credo/  and  is  prob- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


403 


ably  as  much  the  work  of  the  credulous  and  imaginative 
Spanish  Fathers  as  of  the  designing  natives.  The  story 
ought  to  be  repudiated  without  question." — North  Amer 
icans  of  Antiquity,  p.  231. 

And  Bancroft  disposes  of  it  in  these  words:  "The 
inquiries  instituted  by  Las  Casas  revealed  the  existence 
of  a  trinity,  the  first  person  of  which  was  Izona,  the 
Great  Father;  the  second  was  the  son  of  the  Great 
Father,  Bacab,  born  of  the  virgin  Chibirias,  scourged 
and  crucified,  he  descended  into  the  realms  of  the  dead, 
rose  again  the  third  day,  and  ascended  into  heaven;  the 
third  person  of  the  trinity  was  Echuah,  or  Ekchuah,  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Now,  to  accuse  the  reverend  Fathers  of 
deliberately  concocting  this  and  other  statements  of  a 
similar  character  is  to  accuse  them  of  acts  of  charlatan 
ism  which  no  religious  zeal  could  justify.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  this  mysterious  trinity,  this  Maya  Christ 
myth,  had  any  real  existence  in  the  original  belief  of  the 
natives,  is  so  improbable  as  to  be  almost  impossible.  It 
may  be,  however,  that  the  natives,  when  questioned  con 
cerning  their  religion,  endeavored  to  make  it  conform  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  that  of  their  conquerors,  hoping  by 
this  means  to  gain  the  good  will  of  their  masters,  and  to 
lull  suspicions  of  lurking  idolatry.  Bacab,  stated  above 
to  mean  the  Son  of  the  Great  Father,  was  in  reality  the 
name  of  four  spirits  who  supported  the  firmament; 
while  Echuah,  or  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  the  patron  god  of 
merchants  and  travelers." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  pp. 
462,  463. 

The  names  of  the  four  Bacabs,  as  given  by  Brinton, 
are :  Hobnil,  Canzicnal,  Zaczini  and  Hozan  ek.  They 
stood,  respectively,  for  the  cardinal  points,  south,  east, 
north  and  west ;  for  the  days,  Kan,  Muluc,  Ix  and 
Cauac;  for  the  elements,  air,  fire,  water  and  earth;  and 


404  L'UMORAH  REVISITED 

were  represented  by  the  colors,  yellow,  red,  white  and 
black.1  Their  mother  was  not  Chibirias,  but  Ix  Kan 
Leom,  "The  Spider  Web,"  the  goddess  of  medicine  and 
childbirth.  On  Ek  Chua,  "The  Black  Companion,"  Brin- 
ton  remarks:  "God  of  the  cacao  planters  and  the  mer 
chants,  as  these  used  the  cacao  beans  as  a  medium  of 
exchange." — Mayan  Primer,  p.  42.  So  this  fanciful 
theory  of  an  Indian  trinity  falls  to  the  ground,  and  the 
Book  of  Mormon  loses  one  more  of  its  choice  "collateral 
evidences." 

WAS   QUETZALCOATL   JESUS   CHRIST? 

Another  very  absurd  theory  is  that  which  identifies 
our  Lord  with  Quetzalcoatl,  the  Aztec  god  of  the  air. 
Kingsborough  is  the  most  prominent  advocate  of  this 
opinion.  He  claims  that  in  a  certain  piece  of  ancient 
sculpture  work,  discovered  in  Mexico  by  Mons.  Dupaix, 
this  god  is  represented  as  wearing  a  crown  of  thorns, 
that  in  a  bust  now  preserved  in  the  British  Museum  he 
holds  in  his  hand  a  fan  and  a  sickle,  and  that  in  the 
Borgian  manuscript  he  is  represented,  pictographically,  as 
dying  upon  a  cross  between  two  reviling  thieves.  Put 
ting  these  evidences  together,  he  decides  that  the  Ameri 
cans  knew  of  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord  upon  the  cross 
of  Calvary. 

On  the  supposed  representation  of  the  crucifixion  of 
Quetzalcoatl,  as  given  in  the  Borgian  manuscript,  he 
says:  "In  the  fourth  page  of  the  Borgian  manuscript,  he 
seems  to  be  crucified  between  two  persons,  who  are  in 
the  act  of  reviling  him ;  who  hold,  as  it  would  appear, 
halters  in  their  hands,  the  symbols,  perhaps,  of  some 
crime  for  which  they  were  themselves  going  to  suffer." 

*  "Mayan  Primer,"  p.  41, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


405 


— Quoted  in  Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,  p.  239.  He 
says  further  that  in  the  seventy-second,  seventy-third 
and  seventy-fifth  pages,  as  well  as  in  the  fourth  page,  of 
this  manuscript,  are  paintings  "which  actually  represent 
Quecalcoatle  crucified  and  nailed  to  the  cross." 

The  Mormons  have  eagerly  seized  these  quotations, 
with  others  from  the  same  author,  and  give  them  wide 
publicity  as  proving  that  the  ancient  Americans  knew 
of  the  crucifixion  of  Christ.  "When  we  read  of  these 
evidences,"  writes  Elder  Stebbins,  "we  see  the  very  char 
acter  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  also  his  suffer 
ing,  presented  to  us." — Lectures,  p.  241.  And  on  the 
bust  of  Quetzalcoatl,  in  which  that  god  is  holding  a  fan 
and  a  sickle,  he  says:  "We  can  see  the  meaning  of  the 
fan  and  the  sickle,  for  it  is  written  of  Christ,  'Whose 
fan  is  in  his  hand;'  and  when  he  shall  come  again  he 
shall  come  with  the  sickle,  as  shown  in  Rev.  14:  14-19." 
— Lectures,  p.  240.  The  Brighamites,  also,  have  not 
spoken  in  uncertain  terms  on  the  identity  of  the  Lord 
with  this  Mexican  deity.  Says  Elder  John  Taylor :  "The 
story  of  the  life  of  the  Mexican  divinity,  Quetzalcoatl, 
closely  resembles  that  of  the  Saviour ;  so  closely,  indeed, 
that  we  can  come  to  no  other  conclusion  than  that  Quet 
zalcoatl  and  Christ  are*  the  same  being." — Mediation  and 
Atonement,  p.  201. 

But  this  belief  rests,  not  upon  acknowledged  facts, 
but  upon  certain  inferences  drawn  from  the  statuary  and 
paintings  of*  the  country,  and  that,  too,  by  Lord  Kings- 
borough,  a  writer  half  crazed  and  fanatical.  No  archae 
ologist  of  reputation  holds  to  this  theory  at  the  present 
time,  for  upon  a  comparison  of  it  with  the  evidences 
upon  which  it  is  based  its  ridiculousness  is  made  appar 
ent  at  once.  While  Mormon  writers  make  good  use  of  his 
statements,  they  are  very  careful  that  the  public  shall  not 


406  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

see  the  figures  from  the  Codex  Borgianus,  which  Kings- 
borough  claims  are  representations  of  Quetzalcoatl  cru 
cified.  In  1888  a  prominent  Josephite  elder  went  to  the 
Cincinnati  Exposition,  where  a  set  of  Kingsbo rough  was 
on  exhibition,  and  copied  a  number  of  extracts  from  it 
relative  to  the  character,  work  and  death  of  this  god. 
These  extracts  were  published  the  following  year  in  the 
Josephite  magazine,  Autumn  Leaves,  and  afterwards  in 
"Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,"  "Divinity  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon  Proven  by  Archaeology,"  and  other  Mormon 
works.  But  why  did  this  elder,  after  he  had  put  himself 
to  so  much  trouble  to  see  a  set  of  Kingsborough's  "Mex 
ican  Antiquities,"  not  sketch,  or  have  sketched,  the  fig 
ures  which  the  latter  claims  represent  the  crucifixion 
scene  of  Quetzalcoatl?  The  reason  is  obvious.  He  knew 
full  well  that  a  glance  at  these  pictographs  would  for 
ever  destroy  the  force  of  Kingsborough's  claim  with 
every  unbiased  reader  and  the  Book  of  Mormon  would 
lose  some  highly  valued  evidence. 

Although  Kingsborough's  work  is  very  rare  and  ex 
pensive,  being  long  out  of  print,  I  have  succeeded  in 
locating  three  sets :  one  in  Cambridge,  Mass. ;  another 
in  the  library  of  the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wis 
consin,  at  Madison,  and  still  another  in  the  library  of  the 
Field's  Museum,  Chicago.  Through  the  kindness  of  the 
librarian  of  the  last-mentioned  institution,  I  was  permit 
ted  to  sketch  the  figures  on  pages  4  and  75  of  the  "Bor- 
gian  Codex."  The  pictograph  on  page  4  (Fig.  12)  of 
this  manuscript  is  the  one  which  Kingsborough  declares 
represents  Quetzalcoatl  crucified  "between  two  persons 
who  are  in  the  act  of  reviling  him  ;  and  who  hold,  as  it 
would  appear,  halters  in  their  hands,  the  symbols,  per 
haps,  of  some  crime  for  which  they  were  themselves  go 
ing  to  suffer;"  while  the  one  from  page  75  (Fig.  13)  is 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


407 


also  said  to  represent  a  crucifixion  scene.  The  picto- 
graphs  on  pages  72  and  73  I  was  unable  to  sketch,  be 
cause  of  their  complexity,  but  they  no  more  suggest  a 
crucifixion  scene  than  they  do  the  surrender  of  General 
Lee  at  Appomattox.  Those  that  I  have  been  so  fortu 
nate  as  to  obtain  comprise  only  one- fourth  of  the  pages 
from  which  they  are  taken,  there  being  three  other 


FIGURE  12.     "QUETZALCOATL  CRUCIFIED."     Page  4,  Borgian  Codex. 

groups  on  each  page,  the  whole  arranged  in  the  form  of 
a  quadrilateral.  I  ask  the  reader  to  examine  carefully 
the  drawings  given,  and  then  to  decide  for  himself  how 
much  of  truth  there  is  in  the  claim  that  they  represent 
a  crucifixion  scene. 

Outside  of  Kingsborough,  no  archaeologist  of  promi- 


408 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


nence  has  ever  been  able  to  see  the  identity  between  our 
Lord  and  Quetzalcoatl.  Clavigero  thinks  that  the  latter 
was  a  real  person,  who,  after  his  departure  from  Cho- 
lula,  was  apotheosized  and  made  a  god ;  Tylor  identifies 
him  with  the  sun;  De  Bourbourg  holds  that  he  was  the 


FIGURE  13.  .  "QUETZALCOATL  CRUCIFIED."     Page  75,  Borgian  Codex. 

symbol  of  an  ancient  religion ;  and  Brinton  contends  that 
he  was  only  the  personification  of  the  dawn.1  On  the 
utter  absence  of  such  a  character  as  Christ  in  the  myth 
ologies  and  religions  of  America,  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet  says : 
"The  most  striking  analogy  between  the  religious  sys- 

1  Bancroft,  III:  260-267. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


409 


terns  of  America  and  those  which  existed  in  the  far  East, 
consists  in  the  fact  that  there  was  a  constant  progress, 
and  the  conception  of  Divinity  grew  higher  as  civil 
ization  advanced;  and  yet,  strange  to  say,  no  such  char 
acter  ever  appeared  on  the  continent  of  America,  as  that 
which  was  embodied  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ." — 
Myths  and  Symbols  or  Aboriginal  Religions  (Introduc 
tion). 

That  the  reader  may  decide  for  himself  whether  or 
not  there  is  anything  in  the  character  and  life  of  Quet- 
zalcoatl  to  identify  him  with  Jesus  Christ,  I  here  give  the 
commonly  received  tradition  of  him : 

"The  god  of  the  air,  among  all  the  nations  of  Ana- 
huac,  was  called  Quetzalcoatl ;  that  is  to  say,  'serpent 
decked  with  feathers.'  It  was  related  that  he  had  been 
a  high  priest  of  Tollan,  and  that  he  was  a  man  with  a 
white  skin,  a  high  stature,  a  broad  forehead,  large  eyes, 
long,  black  hair  and  a  bushy  beard.  For  propriety's  sake, 
he  always  wore  ample  garments ;  he  was  so  rich  that  he 
possessed  palaces  of  silver  and  fine  stones.  .  Industrious, 
he  had  invented  the  arts  of  smelting  metals  and  of  work 
ing  stone.  The  laws  which  he  had  given  men  proved  his 
knowledge,  and  his  austere  life  his  wisdom.  When  he 
wished  to  promulgate  a  law,  he  sent  a  hero  whose  voice 
could  be  heard  a  hundred  leagues  away,  to  proclaim  it 
from  the  summit  of  Tzatzitepetl  (mountain  of  clamors). 

"In  the  time  of  Quetzalcoatl, %  maize  attained  such 
enormous  dimensions  that  a  single  ear  was  all  a  man 
could  carry.  Gourds  measured  not  less  than  four  feet, 
and  it  was  no  longer  necessary  to  dye  cotton,  because  all 
colors  were  produced  by  nature.  The  other  products  of 
the  earth  naturally  attained  dimensions  similar  to  those  of 
Indian  corn ;  singing-birds  and  birds  of  brilliant  plumage 
abounded.  All  men  were  then  rich.  In  a  word,  the 


410  CUMOKAH    REVISITED 

Aztecs  believed  that  the  reign  of  Quetzalcoatl  had  been 
the  golden  age  of  the  country  they  inhabited. 

"Like  the  Saturn  of  the  Greeks,  with  whom  we  may 
compare  him,  the  god  of  Toltec  origin  abandoned  his 
country.  When  its  prosperity  was  at  its  height,  Tezcat- 
lipoca,  for  some  unknown  reason,  appeared  to  him  in  the 
form  of  an  old  man,  and  revealed  to  him  that  the  will 
of  the  gods  ordained  that  he  should  betake  himself  to  the 
kingdom  of  Tlapallan.  At  the  same  time  he  offered  him 
a  beverage  by  means  of  which  Quetzalcoatl  believed  he 
might  acquire  immortality.  But  he  had  scarcely  swal 
lowed  the  draught  when  he  was  seized  with  such  an 
irresistible  desire  to  repair  to  Tlapallan  that  he  immedi 
ately  set  out,  escorted  by  a  number  of  his  followers,  sing 
ing  hymns.  Near  the  village  of  Cuauhtitlan,  Quetzal 
coatl  threw  a  number  of  stones  against  a  tree,  which 
adhered  to  the  trunk.  Near  Tlanepantla  he  placed  his 
hand  on  a  rock,  which  preserved  the  impression  of  it — 
an  imprint  which  the  .Mexicans  showed  to  the  Spaniards 
after  the  Conquest. 

"Finally,  when  Quetzalcoatl  reached  Cholula,  the  in 
habitants  of  that  city  conferred  the  supreme  power  on 
him.  The  integrity  of  his  life,  the  gentleness  of  his 
manners,  his  repugnance  to  every  species  of  cruelty,  won 
the  hearts  of  the  Cholulans.  From  him  they  learned  how 
to  smelt  metals — an  art  which  afterwards  rendered  them 
celebrated.  For  a  long  time  they  obeyed  the  laws  he 
gave  them.  To  Quetzalcoatl  they  attribute  the  rites  of 
their  religion  and  their  knowledge  of  the  division  of 
time. 

"After  a  sojourn  of  twenty  years  at  Cholula,  Quet 
zalcoatl  resolved  to  continue  his  journey  towards  the 
imaginary  city  of  Tlapallan,  taking  with  him  four  young 
nobles.  Having  arrived  in  the  province  of  Ooatzacoalco, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


411 


he  discharged  his  followers,  and  charged  them  to  tell  the 
Cholulans  that  he  would  shortly  return  to  them.  The 
Cholulans  confided  the  government  of  their  city  to  the 
mandatories  of  their  benefactor  in  memory  of  the  friend 
ship  he  had  for  them.  Gradually  the  report  of  the  death 
of  Quetzalcoatl  spread;  he  was  then  proclaimed  god  by 
the  Toltecs  of  Cholula,  and  afterwards  declared  pro 
tector  of  their  city,  in  the  center  of  which  they  raised  in 
his  honor  a  high  mountain,  which  they  crowned  with  a 
temple.  From  Cholula  the  worship  of  Quetzalcoatl,  ven 
erated  as  the  god  of  the  air,  extended  over  the  whole 
country." — Briart's  Aztecs,  pp.  119-122. 

In  this  account  nothing  is  said  of  the  crucifixion  of 
Quetzalcoatl,  and  the  inference  is  that  he  died  a  natural 
death.  I  think  that  the  reader  will  readily  see  that  the 
theory  that  Quetzalcoatl  was  Jesus  Christ  is  founded 
wholly  upon  Kingsbo rough's  inferences  drawn  from  the 
paintings  and  carvings  of  the  country,  and  not  upon  any 
authentic  tradition. 

THE  INDIAN  DEVIL. 

The  Book  of  Mormon,  like  the  Bible,  teaches  the 
existence  of  a  devil,  the  "Prince  of  Darkness,"  a  being 
morally  antithetical  to  God.  It  declares  that  a  belief  in 
the  existence  of  this  being  was  held  by  the  ancient  races 
of  the  continent,  and  Mormons  insist  that  it  was  still  en 
tertained  among  the  natives  at  the  time  of  their  first  con 
tact  with  Europeans. 

But  this  opinion  is  untrue.  No  such  being  as  the 
devil  of  the  Christian  religion  appears  in  the  mythologies 
of  America.  Those  gods  called  "devils"  by  the  early 
missionaries  and  travelers  were,  in  fact,  only  their  gods 
of  the  underworld — Plutos,  not  devils.  The  most  com 
petent  students  of  the  native  religions  tell  us  that  the 


4i2  CUMORAPI   REVISITED 

American  tribes  did  not  divide  their  gods  into  morally 
antithetical  classes;  that  is,  according  to  their  goodness 
and  badness.  The  Indian's  conception  of  good  and  evil 
differed  vastly  from  ours.  To  him  those  gods  who  sent 
the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  gave  him  good  crops  and 
stocked  the  forests  with  game  and  the  streams  with  fish 
were  good ;  those  who  sent  the  frost  to  kill  the  corn,  dis 
ease  to  destroy  the  people  and  calamity  in  general  were 
bad.  To  him  the  manifestations  of  deity  were  physical, 
not  moral,  manifestations. 

Says  Parkman:  "In  the  primitive  Indian's  conception 
of  a  God  the  idea  of  moral  good  has  no  part.  His  deity 
does  not  dispense  justice  for  this  world  or  the  next,  but 
leaves  mankind  under  the  power  of  subordinate  spirits, 
who  fill  and  control  the  universe.  Nor  is  the  good  and 
evil  of  these  inferior  beings  a  moral  good  and  evil.  The 
good  spirit  is  the  spirit  that  gives  good  luck,  and  min 
isters  to  the  necessities  and  desires  of  mankind ;  the  evil 
spirit  is  simply  a  malicious  agent  of  disease,  death  and 
mischance." — The  Jesuits  in  North  America,  p.  78. 

On  this  point  Brinton,  speaking  comprehensively  of 
all  the  tribes,  says:  "The  various  deities  of  the  Indians, 
it  may  safely  be  said  in  conclusion,  present  no  stronger 
antithesis  in  this  respect  than  those  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome.  Some  gods  favored  man  and  others  hurt 
him;  some,  like  the  forces  they  embodied,  were  benef 
icent  to  him,  others  injurious.  But  no  ethical  contrast, 
beyond  what  this  would  imply,  existed  to  the  native 
mind." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  82. 

Father  Bruyas,  in  translating  the  word  "devil"  into 
Iroquois,  had  to  use  the  word  otkon,  their  word  for  the 
supernatural,  which  he  elsewhere  used  as  the  equiva 
lent  of  our  word  "spirit."  Father  Rogel,  in  1570,  told 
some  of  the  tribes  of  Georgia  that  the  deity  they  wor- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  413 

shiped  was  a  demon,  which  made  them  so  indignant  that 
they  left  him  to  preach  to  the  winds  after  explaining  that, 
instead  of  a  wicked  being,  he  was  the  god  who  sent  all 
good  things.  It  has  been  declared  that  the  Algonkins  of 
New  England  worshiped  a  good  deity  called  Kiehtan,  and 
an  evil  one,  Hobbamock,  "who,"  says  Winslow,  "as  farre 
as  we  can  conceive,  is  the  Devill."  The  former  is  simply 
the  word  for  "great,"  with  a  final  n,  and  is  thought  to  be 
an  abbreviation  of  Kittanitowit,  the  great  manito,  in 
vented  by  the  whites,  and  "not  the  appellation  of  any  per 
sonified  deity."  And  the  latter,  instead  of  being  the 
"Devill,"  is,  according  to  Winslow's  own  statement,  "the 
kindly  god  who  cured  diseases,  aided  them  in  the  chase, 
and  appeared  to  them  in  dreams  as  their  protector,"  and 
is  said  by  Dr.  Jarvis  to  be  "the  oke  or  tutelary  deity  which 
each  Indian  worships."  The  deity  Juripari,  of  certain 
tribes  in  Brazil,  said  to  be  their  evil  spirit,  turns  out  to  be 
only  their  name  for  the  supernatural  in  general.  The 
deity  Aka-kanet,  of  the  Araucanians,  declared  to  be  their 
"father  of  evil,"  is,  instead,  the  benign  power  throned 
in  the  Pleiades,  who  sends  fruit  and  flowers  and  is  ad 
dressed  by  them  as  "grandfather."  Cupay  of  the  Peru 
vians  was  not  "the  shadowy  embodiment  of  evil,"  as 
Prescott  claims,  but  was  their  god  of  the  dead,  analogous 
to  Pluto  of  the  Greek  and  Mictlantecutli  of  the  Mexican 
mythology.  Loskiel,  a  Moravian  missionary  among  the 
Lenape,  says  that  "the  idea  of  a  devil,  a  prince  of  dark 
ness,  they  first  received  in  later  times  through  the  Euro 
peans."  Dr.  Matthews  says  of  the  Hidatsa:  "The  Hi- 
datsa  believe  neither  in  a  hell  nor  a  devil."  Rev.  G.  H. 
Pond  says  of  the  Dakotas:  "I  have  never  been  able  to 
discover  from  the  Dakotas  themselves  the  least  degree 
of  evidence  that  they  divide  the  gods  into  classes  of  good 
and  evil,  and  am  persuaded  that  those  persons  who  repre- 


4H  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

sent  them  as  doing  so  do  it  inconsiderately,  and  because 
it  is  so  natural  to  subscribe  to  a  long-cherished  popular 
opinion."  ]  Gatchet  says  of  the  Creeks :  "The  idea  that 
the  Creeks  knew  anything  of  the  devil  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  a  pure  invention  of  the  missionaries." ''  The 
Iroquois  deity  Hinu,  which  Morgan3  says  was  their 
"Evil  Spirit,"  was,  in  fact,  only  their  "beneficent  Thun 
der  God,"  whose  mission  was  "only  to  promote  the  wel 
fare  of  that  favored  people,  though  isolated  personal 
offenses  might  demand  from  him  a  just  retribution."  4 
The  lack  of  any  moral  differentiation  between  the 
American  deities  is  only  another  of  those  marks  by  which 
the  American  religions  are  classed  with  the  inferior  re 
ligions  of  the  world.  It  disproves  the  claim  that  their 
ancestors  were  Jews  and  Christians. 

THE  AMERICAN  CROSS. 

The  veneration  of  the  cross  among  the  nations  of  the 
New  World  is  held  up  as  further  proof  that  the  Ameri 
cans  knew  of  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  Christ.  "Another 
evidence  in  favor  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,"  says  Apostle 
Blair,  "is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  teaches,  in  Alma  16:  26, 
and  in  Ether  I :  n,  and  elsewhere,  that  the  ancient  inhab 
itants  of  America  knew  concerning  the  crucifixion  of 
Christ,  both  by  revelation  and  by  history,  and  were  there 
fore  acquainted  with  the  cross  as  a  religious  symbol ;  and 
in  the  further  fact  that  the  antiquities  of  America  dis 
close  that  the  cross  was  so  used  by  the  ancients." — Joseph 
the  Seer,  p.  163. 

That   the   cross   appears   among  the   symbolisms  of 

1  "Myths,"  pp.   75-79- 

8  "Migration   Legend  of  the   Creeks,"   Vol.   I.,  p.   216. 

3  "Ancient   Society,"  p.    117. 

*  "Second    Rept.    Bu.    Am.   Ethno.,"   p.    52. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  415 

America  is  not  denied,  but  that  it  has  here  the  same 
significance  that  it  has  among  Christian  nations  is  most 
seriously  objected  to.  Marquette  found  a  large  cross  set 
up  in  an  Indian  village  on  Green  Bay,  a  symbol  of  the 
Mide  society.  On  a  skeleton  discovered  in  a  mound  near 
Zollicoffer  Hill,  Tennessee,  was  found  a  peculiarly 
shaped  copper  ornament  surmounted  with  a  cross,  and 
crosses  have  been  taken  from  a  mound  near  Chillicothe, 
Ohio,  and  from  one  in  the  Cumberland  Valley;  but  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  mounds  in  all  of  these  sections  have 
been  erected  within  post-Columbian  times  makes  the  an 
tiquity  of  these  relics  uncertain.  But  of  the  antiquity  of 
the  symbol  of  the  cross  at  Cuzco,  on  the  Cozumel  Island, 
Yucatan,  in  the  bas-reliefs  of  Palenque  and  in  the 
Codices  of  Central  America  and  Mexico,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  The  question  before  us  is,  Does  the  existence  of 
the  cross  among  the  antiquities  of  America  prove  that 
the  ancient  Americans  knew  of  Christ's  crucifixion? 

In  the  first  place,  the  cross,  even  as  used  by  Oriental 
nations,  is  not  exclusively  a  Christian  emblem,  and  so  the 
American  cross,  if  brought  from  the  Old  World  at  all, 
may  have  been  brought  from  some  heathen  country  and 
at  a  time  before  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord.  The  cross 
appears  on  the  oldest  monuments  of  Egypt  as  the  symbol 
of  eternal  life  It  was  a  religious  emblem  among  the 
Phoenicians,  whose  goddess,  Astarte,  was  commonly  fig 
ured  bearing  a  Latin  cross.  One  of  the  old  Assyrian 
kings  is  represented  on  a  monument  at  Nineveh  as  wear 
ing  around  his  neck  the  four  sacred  symbols,  the  cres 
cent,  the  star  or  sun,  the  trident  and  the  cross.  While  in 
China  it  stood  as  the  symbol  of  conception  long  before 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 

But  there  is  no  need  of  looking  to  the  Old  World  for 
the  derivation  of  the  American  cross.  It  is  a  simple 


416  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

figure,  easily  made,  on  account  of  which  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  it  appears  in  the  symbolisms  of  the 
ancient  nations  of  this  continent  along  with  the  circle, 
square  and  other  simple  figures.  But  there  is,  however, 
one  indisputable  fact  connected  with  its  use  on  this  con 
tinent:  it  conveyed  to  the  native  mind  no  such  signifi 
cance  as  it  conveys  to  ours,  but  stood  universally  as  the 
symbol  of  the  four  cardinal  points,  or  of  the  four  winds 
that  bring  the  fertilizing  showers.  On  its  significance 
among  the  tribes  of  Yucatan  one  of  the  old  chroniclers 
says:  "Those  of  Yucatan  prayed  to  the  cross  as  the  god 
of  rains  when  they  needed  water."  And  Las  Casas  tells 
us  that  the  natives  of  Chiapas  erected  altars  in  the  form 
of  the  cross  near  their  principal  springs.  When  the 
Muyscas  sacrificed  to  the  goddess  of  waters  they  ex 
tended  strings  across  some  sacred  lake,  at  right  angles 
and  in  the  direction  of  the  four  cardinal  points,  and  at 
the  point  of  intersection  made  their  offerings  of  precious 
stones  and  precious  oils.  In  time  of  drought  the  Lenape 
conjurer  went  to  some  secluded  place,  drew  a  cross  on 
the  ground,  with  its  arms  pointing  toward  the  four  car 
dinal  points,  and,  after  placing  a  piece  of  tobacco  or  some 
other  offering  on  the  point  of  intersection,  cried  aloud  to 
the  spirits  of  rain  for  relief.  The  Blackfeet  honored 
their  wind-god  by  arranging  boulders  on  the  prairies  in 
the  form  of  a  cross.  And  the  Creeks,  on  the  occasion  of 
their  puskita,  honored  the  four  winds  by  making  a  cross 
of  four  logs  extending  in  the  four  cardinal  directions, 
and  making1  new  fire  by  friction  at  the  point  where  they 
came  together. 

On  the  significance  of  the  Mexican  cross  Brinton 
says :  "It  represented  the  god  of  rains  and  of  health,  and 
this  was  everywhere  its  simple  meaning." — Myths  of  the 
New  World,  p.  114. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  417 

Bancroft  remarks :  "With  the  Mexicans  the  cross  was 
a  symbol  of  rain,  the  fertilizing  element,  or,  rather,  of 
the  four  winds,  the  bearers  of  rain." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
III.,  p.  469. 

And,  in  speaking  of  the  cross  in  the  Walam  Olum 
and  other  American  records,  Peet  says :  "In  these  various 
records  the  circle  was  the  symbol  of  the  sun,  the  cross 
was  the  symbol  of  the  winds,  the  square  was  the  symbol 
of  the  four  quarters  of  the  sky,  and  the  crescent  the 
symbol  of  the  moon." — Myths  and  Symbols,  p.  186. 

This  is  its  true  meaning  in  ancient  American  symbol 
ism  ;  we  need  look  for  no  other. 

THE    AMERICAN    PRIESTHOODS. 

Latter-day  Saints  declare  that  there  are  certain  fea 
tures  observed  in  the  priesthoods  of  America  which 
strongly  suggest  the  Jewish.  Says  Elder  Phillips :  "High 
priests  were  a  Jewish  institution,  and  were  also  had  in 
America  according  to  the  Book  of  Mormon;  this  Ban 
croft  confirms ;  also  Donnelly  says :  'The  priesthood  was 
thoroughly  organized  in  Mexico  and  Peru.  They  were 
prophets  as  well  as  priests/  " — Book  of  Mormon  Veri 
fied,  p.  23.  No  Mormon  will  insist,  however,  that  the 
American  priesthoods,  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery,  were 
exactly  like  the  Jewish,  but  only  that  they  bore  certain 
marks  by  which  the  former  existence  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity  may  be  proved.  Their  theory  is  that  in  the 
apostasy  of  the  Lamanites  some  of  the  beliefs  and  insti 
tutions  of  Judaism  and  Christianity  were  retained  and 
have  come  down  to  us  in  a  more  or  less  mutilated  con 
dition  mingled  with  heathen  superstitions. 

But  the  mere  fact  that  both  peoples  had  priests  proves 
nothing  as  to  their  relationship,  for  the  same  may  be  said 
for  all  nations,  kindreds,  tongues  and  peoples.  The  fact 


418  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

is,  however,  that  the  American  priestly  systems  partook 
more  of  the  nature  of  the  priestly  systems  of  Africa  and 
Polynesia  than  they  did  of  those  of  the  Jews  and  Chris 
tians.  This  will  be  observed  as  we  pass  on. 

In  the  first  place,  as  distinguishing  the  American 
priesthoods  from  the  Hebrew,  we  find  the  priests  of  our 
native  tribes  officiating  at  the  altars  of  heathen  gods. 
Those  of  Mexico  attended  upon  the  worship  of  Tezcatli- 
poca,  Quetzalcoatl,  Centeotl,  Huitzilopochtli  and  Tlaloc, 
gods  with  few  of  the  attributes  of  Jehovah,  to  whom 
they  offered  sacrifices  and  said  prayers.  In  Yucatan  they 
served  such  gods  as  Kukulkan,  Zamna  and  Kin  Ich,  while 
in  Peru  they  officiated  at  the  altars  of  the  sun,  moon  and 
other  deities.  It  is  estimated  that  the  whole  number  of 
idolatrous  priests  in  Mexico  was  close  to  one  million,  five 
thousand  of  whom  officiated  in  the  great  temple  of  the 
capital. 

In  the  second  place,  the  American  priesthoods  dif 
fered  widely  from  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  in  struc 
ture.  Among  the  Algonkins  there  were  three  orders  of 
priests,  the  wdbeno,  mide  and  jossakeed.  The  last  no 
white  man  could  enter.  At  the  head  of  the  Aztec  hier- 
archial  system  stood  the  Teotecuhtli,  "divine  lord,"  who 
superintended  the  secular  affairs,  and  the  Hueiteopixqui, 
"high  priest,"  who  had  charge  of  all  religious  matters. 
Next  below  these  was  the  Mexicatlteohuatzin,  a  sort  of 
vicar-general,  appointed  to  look  after  the  public  worship, 
the  priesthood  and  the  schools  throughout  the  kingdom. 
He  was  assisted  by  two  coadjutors,  the  Huitzuahuacteo- 
huatzin  and  the  Tepantehuatzin.  Below  these  stood  the 
Topiltzin,  the  chief  sacrificer,  and  his  five  assistants:  the 
Tlalquimiloltecuhtli,  keeper  of  relics  and  ornaments ;  the 
Ometochtli,  composer  of  hymns ;  the  Tlapixcatzin,  musi 
cal  director;  the  Epcoaquacuiltzin,  master  of  ceremonies; 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


419 


and  a  number  of  other  dignitaries  of  less  degree.  The 
priesthoods  of  Yucatan  and  Peru  were  equally  as  com 
plex. 

In  the  third  place,  the  American  priests  offered  hu 
man  sacrifices  and  sometimes  ate  human  flesh,  practices 
that  connect  them  with  the  lowest  forms  of  religion. 
Historians  differ  as  to  the  number  of  human  sacrifices 
offered  in  Mexico  every  year.  A  safe  estimate  is  twenty 
thousand.  These  victims  were  mostly  prisoners  of  war, 
but  in  some  instances  parents  offered  their  children,  even, 
that  their  gods  might  not  fail  of  being  served.  It  is 
asserted  that  certain  Central  American  nations  waged 
war  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  obtaining  sacrifices  for 
their  altars,  and  this  assertion  seems  well  founded.  Just 
v.'hen  the  practice  of  offering  human  sacrifices  was  intro 
duced  no  one  can  tell,  but  it  is  certain  that  it  dates  from 
pre-Toltec  times,  although  it  is  said  that  the  Toltecs 
under  Quetzalcoatl  broke  away  from  it. 

In  the  fourth  place,  the  American  priests  were  nec 
romancers,  clairvoyants,  mesmerists  and  adepts  in  occult 
ism.  These,  again,  are  marks,  not  of  either  Judaism  or 
Christianity,  but  of  paganism.  A  number  of  these  prac 
tices  are  described  in  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  by 
Brinton. 

There  is  nothing  whatever  to  show  that  the  priestly 
idea  in  the  native  American  religions  came  from  the 
Jewish  or  Christian.  On  the  contrary,  the  American 
priesthoods  were,  in  organization  and  practice,  connected 
with  the  lower  religious  systems  of  the  world. 

RITES  AND   CEREMONIES. 

When  the  Spanish  priests  first  came  to  Mexico  they 
found  certain  rites,  ceremonies  and  institutions  which 
strongly  reminded  them  of  certain  of  the  rites,  ceremo- 


420  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

nies  and  institutions  of  the  Jews  and  Christians.  Among 
these  were  baptism,  auricular  confession,  the  celebration 
of  the  eucharist,  circumcision,  the  laying  on  of  hands  and 
penance,  and  from  the  descriptions  that  they  have  left 
one  would  suppose  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  very 
good  Roman  Catholics.  The  missionaries  accounted  for 
these  similarities  either  upon  the  supposition  that  the 
gospel  had  been  preached  here  by  St.  Thomas  in  the  first 
century,  or  that  these  similarities  to  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  religions  were  the  inventions  of  the  devil  for 
the  purpose  of  deception. 

In  speaking  of  these  supposed  analogies  to  the  Chris 
tian  faith,  Prescott  says:  "We  should  have  charity  for 
the  missionaries  who  first  landed  in  this  world  of  won 
ders;  where,  while  man  and  nature  wore  so  strange  an 
aspect,  they  were  astonished  by  occasional  glimpses  of 
rites  and  ceremonies  which  reminded  them  of  a  pure 
faith.  In  their  amazement,  they  did  not  reflect  whether 
these  things  were  not  the  natural  expression  of  the  relig 
ious  feeling  common  to  all  nations  who  have  reached 
even  a  moderate  civilization.  They  did  not  inquire 
whether  the  same  things  were  not  practiced  by  other 
idolatrous  people  They  could  not  suppress  their  wonder 
as  they  beheld  the  cross,  the  sacred  emblem  of  their  own 
faith,  raised  as  an  object  of  worship  in  the  temples  of 
Anahuac.  They  met  with  it  in  various  places ;  and  the 
image  of  a  cross  may  be  seen  at  this  day,  sculptured 
in  bas-relief,  on  the  walls  of  one  of  the  buildings  of 
Palenque,  while  a  figure  bearing  some  resemblance  to 
that  of  a  child  is  held  up  to  it,  as  if  in  adoration. 

"Their  surprise  was  heightened  when  they  witnessed 
a  religious  rite  which  reminded  them  of  the  Christian 
communion.  On  these  occasions  an  image  of  the  tutelary 
deity  of  the  Aztecs  was  made  of  the  flour  of  maize, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  421 

mixed  with  blood,  and,  after  consecration  by  the  priests, 
was  distributed  among  the  people,  who,  as  they  ate  it, 
'showed  signs  of  humiliation  and  sorrow,  declaring  it 
was  the  flesh  of  the  deity.'  How  could  the  Roman 
Catholic  fail  to  recognize  the  awful  ceremony  of  the 
eucharist  ? 

"With  the  same  feelings  they  witnessed  another  cere 
mony,  that  of  the  Aztec  baptism,  in  which,  after  a  solemn 
invocation,  the  head  and  lips  of  the  infant  were  touched 
with  water,  and  a  name  was  given  to  it ;  while  the  goddess 
Cioacoatl,  who  presided  over  childbirth,  was  implored 
'that  the  sin,  which  was  given  to  us  before  the  beginning 
of  the  world,  might  not  visit  the  child,  but  that,  cleansed 
by  these  waters,  it  might  live  and  be  born  anew.' 

"It  is  true,  these  several  rites  were  attended  with 
many  peculiarities,  very  unlike  those  in  any  Christian 
church.  But  the  fathers  fastened  their  eyes  exclusively 
on  the  points  of  resemblance.  They  were  not  aware  that 
the  cross  was  the  symbol  of  worship,  of  the  highest 
antiquity,  in  Egypt  and  Syria ;  and  that  rites,  resembling 
those  of  communion  and  baptism,  were  practiced  by. 
pagan  nations,  on  whom  the  light  of  Christianity  had 
never  shone.  In  their  amazement,  they  not  only  mag 
nified  what  they  saw,  but  were  perpetually  cheated  by  the 
illusions  of  their  own  heated  imaginations.  In  this  they 
were  admirably  assisted  by  their  Mexican  converts,  proud 
to  establish — and  half  believing  it  themselves — a  corre 
spondence  between  their  own  faith  and  that  of  their 
conquerors." — Conquest  of  Mexico,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  383- 

387. 

The  Latter-day  Saints1  have  been  as  quick  to  see 
these  analogies  to  the  Jewish  and  Christian  faiths  as 

1  "Divinity  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,"  pp.  49,  50,  "Book  of  Mormon 
Verified,"  p.  20. 


422  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

have  the  old  Catholic  missionaries,  and  they  hold  them 
up  as  conclusive  proof  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  is  true 
in  its  teachings  on  the  religions  of  the  ancient  Americans. 
But,  as  Prescott  says,  they  are  not  aware  "that  the  cross 
was  the  symbol  of  worship,  of  the  highest  antiquity,  in 
Egypt  and  Syria;  and  that  rites,  resembling  those  of 
communion  and  baptism,  were  practiced  by  pagan  nations 
on  whom  the  light  of  Christianity  had  never  shone,"  and 
they  magnify  these  resemblances,  being  "perpetually 
cheated  by  the  illusions  of  their  own  heated  imagina 
tions."  When  the  matter  is  carefully  looked  into,  these 
rites  lose  much  of  their  similarity  to  the  Jewish  and 
Christian. 

Let  us  first  take  up  a  number  of  cases  in  which  the 
application  of  water  ceremonially  played  an  important 
part  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  they  do  or 
do  not  suggest  the  former  practice  of  Christian  baptism 
on  this  continent. 

On  certain  occasions  the  Tupi  priests  of  Brazil  assem 
bled  the  people  together,  filled  large  jars  with  water,  and, 
after  repeating  some  magical  words  over  them,  sprinkled 
the  congregation  with  palm  branches.1  The  Maya  priests 
sprinkled  both  their  idols  and  the  votaries  with  water 
which  either  had  to  be  morning  dew  or  that  which  flowed 
from  a  well  of  which  no  woman  had  ever  tasted.2  A 
Natchez  chief,  when  persuaded  against  his  will  not  to 
offer  himself  on  the  pyre  of  his  ruler,  took  water  and 
washed  his  hands,  as  did  Pilate  of  old,  to  signify  that  he 
would  not  bear  the  moral  responsibility  for  not  dying. 
The  ancient  Peruvians,  after  confessing  their  sins,  bathed 
in  the  river,  repeating  the  formula:  "O  thou  River,  re 
ceive  the  sins  I  have  this  day  confessed  unto  the  Sun, 

1  "Myths,"    p.    147. 

8  "Myths,"   pp.    147,    148. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


423 


carry  them  down  to  the  sea,  and  let  them  never  more 
appear."  The  Navajo,  who  carries  a  dead  body  to  its 
burial,  holds  himself  unclean  until  he  has  washed  himself 
in  water  specifically  prepared  by  certain  ceremonies.  As 
the  reader  has  noticed,  repeated  bathings  were  essential 
to  a  proper  observance  of  the  busk  of  the  Creeks.  In 
Peru  the  child  was  immersed  by  the  priest  in  water  which 
afterwards  was  buried  in  the  ground.  The  Cherokees 
believe  that  the  rite  must  be  performed  when  the  child  is 
three  days  old,  or  else  it  will  die,  but  the  origin  of  this 
belief  and  practice  is  very  doubtful.  Among  the  Zapotecs 
the  child,  as  soon  as  it  was  born,  was  immersed  in  a 
near-by  river  by  its  parents,  who  invoked  the  inhabitants 
of  the  water  to  extend  their  protection  to  it.  In  the  mar 
riage  ceremony  of  the  Nahuas  the  wedded  pair  had  water 
poured  over  them  by  the  officiating  priest  while  they 
were  seated  upon  green  reed  mats.  The  Mayas  believed 
that  ablutions  washed  away  sins,  and  children  were  bap 
tized  between  the  ages  of  three  and  twelve  years,  the 
parents  fasting  for  three  days  before  the  ceremony.  And 
among  the  Cherokees  ceremonial  purification  by  water 
was  essential  as  a  preliminary  to  every  undertaking.  It 
preceded  their  game  of  ball,  their  green-corn  dance,  their 
search  for  a  wife,  etc.1 

Of  the  so-called  ordinance  of  baptism  among  the 
Aztecs,  Briart  writes :  "Usually,  the  midwife  washed  the 
new-born,  and  said  to  him :  'Receive  this  water,  for  thy 
mother  is  the  goddess  Chalchiutlicue.  This  bath  wipes 
out  the  stains  that  come  from  thy  fathers,  cleanses  thy 
heart,  and  gives  thee  a  new  life/  Then,  addressing  her 
self  to  the  goddess,  she  asked  her  to  grant  her  prayer. 
Next,  taking  the  water  in  her  right  hand,  and  breathing 

1  "Myths,"  pp.   150,   151. 


424  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

on  it,  she  moistened  the  mouth,  the  head  and  the  breast 
of  the  child  with  it,  and  bathed  him,  saying:  'May  the 
invisible  god  descend  upon  this  water,  may  he  wipe  out 
all  thy  sins,  may  he  guard  thee  against  evil  fortune! 
Gracious  creature,  the  gods  Ometeuctli  and  Omecihuatl 
have  created  thee  in  the  highest  heaven,  to  send  thee  to 
this  earth;  but  know  thou  that  life  is  sad,  painful,  and 
full  of  misery  and  evil,  and  that  thou  canst  eat  only  by 
working.  May  God  help  thee  in  the  many  troubles  that 
await  thee !'  After  this  discourse  she  congratulated  the 
father,  the  mother  and  the  relatives.  The  bath  over,  they 
consulted  the  soothsayers  in  regard  to  the  good  or  bad 
fortune  in  store  for  the  child.  The  sign  that  marked  the 
day  of  his  birth  was  noted,  and  also  the  one  that  ruled 
during  the  period  of  the  last  thirteen  years.  If  the  child 
was  born  at  midnight,  they  compared  the  preceding  day 
and  the  day  following.  These  observations  completed, 
the  soothsayers  foretold  the  future  lot  of  the  new-born. 
If  the  day  was  considered  ill-omened,  the  second  bath  of 
the  child  was  postponed  for  five  days.  The  second  bath 
was  more  important  than  the  first;  the  relatives,  the 
friends  and  a  number  of  children  were  invited  to  be 
present.  If  the  father  was  rich,  he  gave  a  banquet  and  pre 
sented  a  garment  to  each  guest.  If  he  was  a  soldier,  he 
made  a  little  dress,  a  miniature  bow  and  four  little  arrows 
for  the  new-born ;  if  a  laborer  or  artisan,  some  little  tools 
like  those  used  in  his  own  trade.  The  same  was  done  in 
the  case  of  girls,  for  whom  little  spindles  were  made.  A 
number  of  lights  were  ignited,  and  the  midwife  carried 
the  child  about  the  court  of  the  dwelling,  placed  it  on  a 
heap  of  leaves,  near  a  basin,  and  repeated  the  words 
already  quoted.  Rubbing  all  his  limbs,  she  added :  'Where 
art  thou,  evil  fortune?  Leave  the  body  of  this  child/ 
She  then  raised  him  above  her  head,  offered  him  to  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  425 

gods,  and  prayed  them  to  grant  him  all  the  virtues.  She 
then  invoked  the  goddess  of  the  waters,  next  the  sun  and 
the  earth.  Thou,  O  Sun,  father  of  all  living,'  she  said, 
'.and  thou,  O  Earth,  our  mother,  accept  this  child,  protect 
it  as  though  it  were  thine  own  son!  If  he  must  be  a 
soldier,  may  he  die  in  battle,  defending  the  honor  of  the 
gods,  so  that  he  may  be  able  to  enjoy  in  heaven  the  pleas 
ures  reserved  for  the  brave  who  sacrifice  in  such  a  good 
cause.'" — The  Aztecs,  pp.  196-198.  Following  these 
ceremonies  the  child  was  given  a  name,  and,  if  a  boy,  the 
tiny  implements  of  warfare  were  buried  in  a  field  where 
it  was  supposed  he  might  in  the  future  fight ;  while,  if  a 
girl,  the  spindle  was  buried  in  the  dwelling  underneath 
the  stone  for  pounding  maize. 

The  Maya  rite,  which  was  quite  similar,  was  called 
zihil,  which  signifies  "to  be  born  again."  It  was  con 
sidered  essential  to  a  pure  life  and  a  protection  against 
misfortune  and  evil  spirits.  It  was  administered  to  chil 
dren  of  both  sexes  at  any  time  between  the  ages  of  three 
and  twelve  years.  The  parents  desiring  their  children 
baptized  notified  the  priest,  who  published  notices 
throughout  the  town  of  the  day  upon  which  the  ceremony 
was  to  be  performed.  This  done,  the  fathers  selected  five 
of  the  most  influential  men  of  the  community  to  act  as 
assistants,  and  for  three  days  before  fasted  and  refrained 
from  sexual  intercourse.  When  the  time  arrived  the 
guests  gathered  in  the  home  of  one  of  the  parents  where 
the  ceremony  was  to  be  performed.  In  the  courtyard 
fresh  leaves  were  strewn,  upon  which  the  boys  were 
arranged  in  a  row  in  charge  of  godfathers  and  the  girls 
in  charge  of  godmothers.  After  the  purification  of  the 
house,  with  the  object  of  casting  out  the  demons,  which 
was  done  by  the  children  throwing,  one  by  one,  a  handful 
of  cornmeal  and  incense  upon  a  brazier,  the  priest, 


426  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

clothed  in  the  robes  of  his  office,  proceeded  to  perform 
the  ceremony.  This  consisted  in  blessing  the  children 
and  purifying  them  with  hyssop,  at  the  same  time  offer 
ing  up  prayers  in  their  behalf,  following  which  one  of  the 
five  assistants,  dipping  a  bone  in  water,  moistened  their 
foreheads,  their  features,  their  fingers  and  their  toes, 
after  which  the  priest  cut  from  their  hair  a  certain  bead 
which  had  been  attached  in  childhood,  gave  them  flowers 
to  smell  and  performed  other  simple  rites.  A  grand  ban 
quet,  called  emku,  "the  descent  of  god,"  was  then  held, 
which  was  followed  by  a  strict  fast  for  the  nine  succeed 
ing  days.1 

It  requires  a  wide  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  see 
in  any  of  these  native  ceremonies  a  suggestion  of  the 
former  practice  of  Christian  baptism  on  this  continent. 
Christian  baptism  consists  in  a  simple  immersion  of  a  be 
liever  in  water  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son 
and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  to  this  all  Latter-day  Saints 
without  exception  agree.  But,  in  some  of  these  cere 
monies,  water  was  applied  by  sprinkling  and  pouring;  in 
others  the  rite  was  performed  at  intervals,  sometimes 
repeatedly;  in  others  the  candidate,  if  such  he  may  be 
called,  baptized  himself;  and  in  still  others  it  was  per 
formed  in  honor  of  heathen  gods  and  goddesses  and  was 
connected  with  superstitions  of  the  grossest  kind.  I  am 
willing  to  let  the  reader  decide  for  himself  whether  or 
not  the  practice  of  applying  water  to  the  person  cere 
monially  by  the  American  Indians  is  suggestive  of  the 
rite  of  Christian  baptism. 

As  strong  objections  may  be  made  to  the  claim  that 
certain  rites  found  in  America  were  but  the  ordinance 
of  Christian  communion  in  a  perverted  form.  In  Nica- 

1  Bancroft,  11:684. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


427 


ragua,  during  certain  observances,  the  worshipers  "sprin 
kled  maize  with  the  blood  from  their  privy  parts,  and  it 
was  distributed  and  eaten  as  blessed  bread." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  II.,  p.  710.  At  the  feast  celebrated  in  honor 
of  their  first  captain,  Vichilopuchitl,  the  Mexicans  "made 
a  cake  of  the  meal  of  bledos,  which  is  called  tzoali,  and, 
having  made  it,  they  spoke  over  it  in  their  manner,  and 
broke  it  into  pieces.  These  the  high  priest  put  into  cer 
tain  very  clean  vessels,  and  with  a  thorn  of  maguey, 
which  resembles  a  thick  needle,  he  took  up  with  the 
utmost  reverence  single  morsels,  and  put  them  into  the 
mouth  of  each  individual,  in  the  manner  of  a  com 
munion." — Ibid,  Vol.  III.,  p.  323.  Among  this  same 
people,  at  the  feast  of  their  god  of  banquets  and  guests, 
Ome  Acatl,  a  similar  rite  was  performed.  Dough  was 
taken  and  kneaded  by  the  principal  men  into  the  form  of 
a  bone,  called  the  bone  of  Ome  Acatl.  After  spending 
the  night  in  gluttony  and  drunkenness,  this  bone  was 
divided,  at  the  break  of  day,  and  each  one  ate  that  which 
fell  to  his  lot.  Again,  among  the  same  people  at  the  feast 
of  Huitzilopochtli  a  dough  image  of  this  god  was  broken 
up  and  distributed  among  the  men.  This  celebration  was 
called  teoqualo,  meaning  "the  god  is  eaten."  And  in 
Peru  at  the  feast  of  Raymi  a  cake  made  of  the  fine  flour 
of  maize  by  the  Virgins  of  the  Sun  was  eaten,  and  the 
fermented  liquor  of  the  country  was  drunken  by  the 
nobles  at  a  banquet  over  which  the  Inca  presided. 

These  are  the  rites  which  the  Spanish  missionaries 
mistook  for  Christian  communion,  and  are  those  which 
the  Mormons  refer  to  in  order  to  prove  that  Christianity 
was  once  the  religion  of  America. 


428  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

COSMOGONY. 

There  are  few  tribes  but  who  have  some  theory  of 
the  origin  of  things  and  of  the  appearance  of  man  upon 
the  earth.  Brinton  mentions  two  in  the  New  World  who 
have  not,  the  Rootdiggers  of  California  and  the  Eskimo. 
These  seem  content  to  suppose  that  things  have  always 
continued  as  they  are,  and  will  always  so  continue.  But 
to  most  men,  as  reason  has  asserted  itself,  nature  has 
suggested  its  beginning  and  also  its  end. 

At  first,  says  the  Greek,  all  was  chaos,  a  shapeless 
mass.  First  appeared  the  spirit  of  love,  Eros;  then  the 
broad-chested  earth,  Gaea;  then  the  darkness,  Erebus, 
and  the  night,  Nyx,  from  the  union  of  which  sprang  the 
clear  sky,  Aether,  and  the  day,  Hemera.  The  earth  of 
itself  brought  forth  the  firmament,  Uranos,  and  the 
mountains  and  sea,  Pontos,  following  which,  from 
Uranos  and  Gaea,  sprang  the  Titans,  Giants  and  Cyclops. 
Out  of  these  beginnings  also  sprang  the  gods  of  the 
Olympus,  the  heroes  and  the  human  race. 

According  to  Egyptian  cosmogony,  the  universe  is  a 
gradually  developing  divinity,  a  quaternity,  not  a  unity, 
composed  of  four  members:  Kneph,  Spirit;  Neith,  mat 
ter  ;  Sevech,  time,  and  Pascht,  space.  These  were  con 
ceived  of  as  independent  and  underived.  Of  the  four, 
Sevech  and  Pascht  were  passive,  while  Kneph  and 
Neith,  who  combined  to  produce  the  world,  were  active. 
Neith  was  thought  to  be  a  great  ball  around  which 
Kneph  brooded  in  preparing  it  for  its  transformation. 
The  first  product  of  the  union  was  Ptah,  the  fire  and 
light  element;  in  the  next  stage  the  firmament,  Pe,  and 
the  earth,  Anuke,  were  produced;  following  which  the 
sun,  moon  and  stars  were  created  and  hung  in  the 
heavens. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  429 

The  cosmological  myth  of  the  Chinese  describes  the 
primal  state  as  one  of  darkness  and  chaos.  From  an  egg 
came  a  being  called  Poon-koo-wong.  Out  of  the  lower 
half  of  the  shell  of  the  egg  he  made  the  earth  and  out 
of  the  upper  half  the  heavens.  With  his  right  hand  he 
made  the  sun  and  with  his  left  the  moon  and  stars,  fol 
lowing  which  he  created  the  five  elements — earth,  fire, 
water,  metal  and  wood.  He  caused  a  vapor  to  rise  from 
a  piece  of  gold  and  also  one  from  a  piece  of  wood, 
which,  breathing  upon,  he  transformed,  respectively,  into 
a  male  and  a  female  principle.  From  the  union  of  these 
two  principles  sprang  a  son  and  a  daughter,  who  were 
the  beginning  of  the  human  race. 

The  native  Americans,  too,  had  various  myths  ac 
counting  for  the  origin  of  things  and  the  advent  of  man 
upon  the  earth. 

The  cosmogony  of  the  Aztecs  and  kindred  tribes  is 
as  follows :  "According  to  the  Nahuatlacs,  there  existed, 
before  the  creation  of  the  universe,  a  heaven,  inhabited 
by  Tonacatecuhtli  and  his  wife  Tbnacacihuatl,  who  in 
time  procreated  four  sons.  The  skin  of  the  oldest, 
Tlatlauhquitezcatlipoca,  was  red;  that  of  the  second, 
Yayauhqui,  black,  and  his  instincts  evil ;  that  of  the 
third,  Quetzalcoatl,  was  white ;  while  the  youngest,  Huit- 
zilipochtli,  was  a  mere  skeleton  covered  with  a  yellow 
skin. 

"After  six  hundred  years  of  idleness  the  gods  resolved 
to  act.  They  named  Quetzalcoatl  and  Huitzilipochtli  as 
executors  of  their  will;  these  thereupon  created  fire,  and 
then  a  demi-sun.  They  afterwards  created  a  man,  Oxo- 
moco,  and  a  woman,  Cipactonatl,  whom  they  commanded 
to  cultivate  the  ground  with  care.  Cipactonatl,  who  was 
also  required  to  spin  and  weave,  was  endowed  with  the 
gift  of  prophecy.  As  a  reward  for  her  oracles  she  was 


430  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

given  grains  of  maize  to  serve  as  food  for  her  descend 
ants.  The  gods  then  made  Mictlanteuchtli  and  his  com 
panion,  Mictlancihuatl,  whom  they  appointed  rulers  of 
the  infernal  regions.  This  done,  they  divided  time  into 
days,  months  and  years. 

"Resuming  their  work,  they  created  a  first  heaven, 
inhabited  by  two  stars,  one  male,  the  other  female ;  then 
a  second,  which  they  peopled  with  Tetzahuacihuatl 
('women  skeletons'),  intended  to  devour  human  beings 
when  the  end  of  the  world  came.  In  the  third  heaven 
they  placed  four  hundred  men,  yellow,  black,  white,  blue 
and  red.  The  fourth  heaven  served  as  a  residence  for 
birds,  which  thence  descended  to  the  earth;  in  the  fifth, 
which  was  peopled  with  fiery  serpents,  comets  and  fall 
ing  stars  had  their  origin.  The  sixth  was  the  empire  of 
the  wind,  the  seventh  that  of  dust,  and  the  eighth  the 
abode  of  the  gods.  It  was  not  known  what  existed  be 
tween  this  one  and  the  thirteenth,  the  rtsidence  of  the 
immutable  Tonacatecuhtli. 

"In  this  creation,  water  received  a  special  organiza 
tion;  for  the  gods  met  to  form  Tlalocaltecuhtli  and  his 
wife,  Chalchiutlicue,  who  became  masters  of  the  liquid 
element.  In  the  dwelling  inhabited  by  these  two  were 
four  pools  filled  with  different  waters.  The  water  of  the 
first  pool  helped  germination,  that  of  the  second  withered 
the  seed,  the  water  of  the  third  froze  them,  and  that  of 
the  fourth  dried  them.  Tlaloc,  in  his  turn,  created  a 
multitude  of  small  ministers  charged  with  the  execution 
of  his  orders.  Furnished  with  an  amphora  and  armed 
with  a  wand,  these  pygmies  carried  the  water  where  the 
god  directed  them,  and  sprinkled  it  as  rain.  Thunder 
was  produced  whenever  one  of  them  broke  his  jar,  and 
the  lightning  which  struck  men  was  nothing  but  a  frag 
ment  of  the  shattered  vessel.  In  the  midst  of  the  waters 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  431 

a  great  fish,  called  Cipactli,  charged  with  sustaining  and 
directing  the  earth,  had  been  created. 

'The  first  woman  bore  a  son;  as  he  had  no  com 
panion,  the  gods  made  him  one  out  of  a  hair.  The  demi- 
sun  illuminated  the  world  imperfectly,  hence  Tezcatli- 
poca  undertook  the  task  of  fashioning  a  complete  star. 
The  Nahuatlacs  believe  that  the  sun  and  moon  wandered 
in  space.  The  sun — a  curious  detail — traversed  half  the 
space  open  before  him,  and  then  retreated.  His  image 
in  the  west  was  only  his  reflection.  Lastly,  the  four  gods 
created  the  giants,  and  then  Huitzilipochtli's  bones  took 
on  a  covering  of  flesh. 

"Discord  broke  out  among  the  creators.  Quetzalcoatl, 
with  a  blow  of  his  stick,  precipitated  Tezcatlipoca  into 
the  water,  where  he  was  transformed  into  a  tiger,  and 
took  his  brother's  place  as  the  sun.  After  a  period  of 
more  than  six  hundred  years,  the  great  tiger  Tezcatlipoca 
gave  Quetzalcoatl  a  blow  with  his  paw,  and  precipitated 
him  in  turn  from  the  heavens.  The  fall  of  the  god  pro 
duced  such  a  wind  that  almost  all  mankind  perished ; 
those  who  survived  were  transformed  into  monkeys. 

"The  quarrels  of  the  gods  took  long  to  subside. 
Tezcatlipoca  rained  fire  over  the  earth,  Chalchiutlicue 
flooded  it,  and  then  it  was  necessary  to  re-people  it. 
Whereupon  Camaxtle-Huitzilipochtli,  striking  a  rock 
with  his  stick,  caused  the  Chichimec-Otomites,  who  had 
peopled  the  earth  before  the  Aztecs,  to  come  forth." — 
The  Aztecs,  pp.  104,  105. 

Of  the  cosmogony  of  the  Mayas  we  know  but  little. 
It  is  known,  however,  that,  like  the  Nahuas,  they  divided 
the  period  of  the  existence  of  the  universe  into  epochs, 
at  the  close  of  each  of  which  there  occurred  a  general 
destruction  of  both  gods  and  men.  Aguilar,  an  early 
writer,  claims  that  the  native  books  recorded  three  such 


432  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

periodical  cataclysms,  the  first  being  called  may  admit, 
"general  death ;"  the  second,  oc  na  kuchil,  "the  ravens 
enter  the  houses,"  which  signifies  that  the  inhabitants 
were  all  dead,  and  the  third,  him  ye  til,  a  universal  del 
uge,  during  which  the  surface  of  the  water  was  within 
the  distance  of  one  stalk  of  maguey  from  the  sky.  Ac 
cording  to  this  account  the  present  is  the  fourth  age  of 
the  world  instead  of  the  fifth,  as  the  Nahuas  believe. 
Their  "terrestrial  Paradise,"  where  men  were  created, 
was  called  hun  anhil,  and  the  first  man  was  anum,  from 
the  verb  anhel,  to  stand  erect.1 

The  Quiches  have  left  us  the  richest  mythological 
legacy  of  all  of  the  American  tribes.  According  to  their 
account,  nothing  existed  in  the  beginning  but  a  broad 
expanse  of  sea.  The  first  creation  was  that  of  the  earth, 
with  the  mountains  and  trees  upon  it,  which  was  spoken 
into  existence  by  Gucumatz,  the  Creator,  Former,  Domi- 
nator  and  Feathered  Serpent.  The  next  step  was  that  of 
bringing  into  being  the  various  forms  of  animal  life,  but, 
as  the  beasts  could  not  speak,  a  curse  was  pronounced 
upon  them  and  it  was  decreed  that  their  flesh  should  be 
humiliated  and  that  they  should  be  killed  and  eaten.  The 
gods,  then,  took  counsel  relative  to  the  making  of  man. 
The  first  man  was  made  of  clay,  but  as  he  was  without 
cohesion,  consistence,  motion  or  strength,  he  was  con 
sumed  in  the  water.  Next  they  made  a  man  of  wood  and 
a  woman  out  of  a  certain  kind  of  pith,  but  these  also  were 
unsatisfactory,  for  while  they  moved  about  and  peopled 
the  earth  with  a  race  of  wooden  manikins  like  them 
selves,  they  were  without  heart  and  intelligence  and 
could  not  worship  their  creators,  so  the  gods  sent  death 
and  destruction  upon  them  and  they  were  all  destroyed 

1  "Mayan  Primer,"  p.  46. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


433 


excepting  a  few  who  now  exist  in  the  woods  in  the  form 
of  apes.  Once  more  the  gods  counseled  together  and 
made  four  perfect  men  of  yellow  and  white  maize.  With 
these  they  were  highly  pleased,  and  as  they  slept  they 
made  four  women  for  them,  who  became  their  wives  and 
from  whom  the  divisions  of  the  Quiche  race  sprang.  It 
appears  that  subsequently  other  men  were  created  from 
whom  came  the  other  tribes.1 

At  first  all  was  water,  say  the  Athapascas,  when  the 
raven  with  eyes  of  fire,  glances  of  lightning  and  the  clap 
ping  of  whose  wings  was  thunder,  descended  upon  this 
primal  ocean,  from  which  the  land  instantly  arose  and 
remained  on  the  surface.  By  him  all  the  varieties  of 
animals  were  created  and  from  him  all  the  tribes  of  this 
stock  trace  their  descent.2 

According  to  the  picture  writing  of  the  Miztecs,  be 
fore  time  all  things  were  orderless  and  water  covered 
the  slime  and  ooze  that  then  composed  the  earth. 
Through  the  efforts  of  two  winds,  Nine  Serpents,  per 
sonified  as  a  bird,  and  Nine  Caverns,  personified  as  a 
winged  serpent,  the  waters  subsided  and  the  land  ap 
peared.3 

The  Guaymis,  of  Costa  Rica,  relate  that  before  all 
things  was  Noncomala,  who  formed  the  world  and  the 
waters,  but  they  were  in  darkness  and  clouds.  So,  cohab 
iting  with  the  water  sprite,  Rutbe,  he  produced  two  male 
twins,  who,  after  thriving  with  their  mother  for  twelve 
years,  left  her  to  become  the  sun  and  moon,  the  twin 
lights  of  the  world.4 

The  Iroquois  claim  that  their  female  ancestor,  being 

1  Bancroft,  III :  42-54. 

2  "Myths,"   p.   267. 
8  "Myths,"   p.   230. 
*  "Myths,"  p.   231. 


434  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

kicked  from  the  sky  by  her  angry  husband,  fell  to  an 
island  in  the  great  sea  which  was  constructed  for  her  by 
the  beaver,  otter  and  muskrat.1 

The  tribes  of  Los  Angeles  County,  California,  have 
an  account  that  their  god,  Quaoar,  coming  down  from 
heaven,  reduced  the  primal  chaos  to  order  and  put  the 
world  on  the  back  of  seven  giants,  following  which 
he  created  the  lower  animals,  and,  lastly,  a  man  and  a 
woman.2 

According  to  the  Koniagas  there  resided  in  heaven  a 
great  deity,  Shi  jam  Schoa,  who  created  two  beings  and 
sent  them  down  to  the  earth,  the  raven  accompanying 
them  as  light-bearer.  Here  this  original  pair  set  things 
in  order  by  making  the  sea,  rivers,  mountains  and  for 
ests.3 

The  Kiowa  claim  that  their  ancestors  came  from  a 
hollow  cottonwood  log  at  the  bidding  of  a  supernatural 
progenitor.  They  came  out  one  at  a  time  until  it  came 
the  turn  of  a  pregnant  woman,  who  stuck  fast  in  the 
hole  and  thus  blocked  the  way  for  the  rest,  which  ac 
counts  for  the  numerical  smallness  of  that  tribe.  Their 
supernatural  progenitor  also  gave  them  the  sun,  divided 
the  day  and  night,  exterminated  a  number  of  vicious 
monsters,  rendered  the  ferocious  animals  harmless  and 
taught  them  the  simple  art  of  hunting.  When  this  was 
done  he  took  his  place  among  the  stars.4 

The  Cherokee  cosmogonic  myth  bears  the  marks  of 
native  origin.  According  to  it  there  was  a  time  when 
there  was  nothing  below  the  heavens  but  water.  The 
animals  were  all  above,  in  Galunlati,  which  was  very 

1  "Myths,"   p.   231. 

2  Bancroft,   III :  84. 
8  Bancroft,   III:  104. 

*  "Seventeenth  Kept.   Bu.  Am.    Ethno.,"  pn     .52,   153. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  435 

much  crowded.  They  wondered  what  was  below  the 
water,  and  so  the  little  water-beetle  volunteered  to  go  and 
see  if  he  could  find  out.  It  darted  hither  and  thither 
over  the  water,  and,  finding  no  firm  place  to  rest,  dived 
down  to  the  bottom  and  brought  up  some  soft  mud, 
which  began  to  grow  and  soon  became  an  immense 
island.  This  island  was  afterwards  fastened  to  the  vault 
of  the  sky  by  four  cords,  from  each  of  its  four  corners. 
At  first  the  land  was  very  wet  and  no  animal  could  live 
on  it,  so  they  sent  out  the  buzzard,  which  flew  all  over 
the  earth,  but  found  no  resting-place.  As  he  flew  over 
what  afterwards  was  the  Cherokee  country,  he  became 
very  tired  and  his  wings  began  to  strike  the  ground. 
Wherever  the  ground  was  struck  a  valley  was  made,  and 
wherever  they  turned  up  again  a  mountain  was  made, 
and  this  accounts  for  the  mountainous  condition  of 
North  Carolina  and  adjacent  territory  where  the  Chero- 
kees  originally  lived.  When  the  land  became  dry  the 
animals  came  down,  but  it  was  still  dark,  and  so  they  got 
the  sun  and  set  it  in  its  track  to  give  light  by  day.1 

In  none  of  these  accounts  do  we  meet  with  any  fea 
tures  specially  suggestive  of  the  account  given  in  the 
first  three  chapters  of  Genesis.  They  are  all  very  origi 
nal,  emanating  from  simple  minds  upon  whom  the  light 
of  divine  revelation  never  shone.  They  betray  the  fact 
that  their  ancestors,  like  themselves,  were  enthralled  in 
nature,  and  that  their  conceptions  of  the  origin  and  end 
of  things  were  formed  under  the  influence  of  these  sur 
roundings.  If  the  American  Indian  is  a  descendant  of 
the  Jew,  and  if  the  Christian  religion  was  once — only 
about  seventeen  hundred  years  ago — the  universal  relig 
ion  of  America,  how  is  this  utter  absence  of  Jewish 

1  "Nineteenth  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  239. 


436  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

cosmogonic  features  in  the  mythology  of  the  American 
race  to  be  accounted  for? 

MYTHOLOGY. 

It  is  asserted  that  there  is  a  striking  similarity  be 
tween  some  of  the  American  myths  and  the  historical 
accounts  of  the  children  of  Israel.  Among  the  Ojibwas 
is  found  a  tradition  which  resembles,  somewhat  closely, 
the  account  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren.  The  Tusayan 
have  a  tradition  of  their  migrations  according  to  which 
they  were  guided  by  a  pillar  of  fire  like  Israel  of  old. 
The  Pai  Utes  had  a  wilderness  journey  during  which 
they  were  given  drink  from  a  magic  cup,  which  never 
became  empty,  and  were  miraculously  fed.  And  among 
the  Tusayan,  again,  their  culture  hero  passed  dry  shod 
through  lakes  and  rivers  whose  waters  were  divided  by 
a  staff  thrown  into  them.1 

These,  and  similar  myths  which  present  some  of  the 
aspects  of  the  Jewish  historical  accounts,  are  referred  to 
as  proving  that  the  American  Indians  are  descendants  of 
Israel.  Apostle  P.  P.  Pratt  says :  "The  Indians  of  Amer 
ica  are  of  Israel,  as  some  of  their  manners,  customs  and 
traditions  indicate." — A  Voice  of  Warning,  p.  79. 

The  slight  similarities  mentioned  are  sufficient  to 
cause  comment,  but  are  not  sufficient  to  prove  a  relation 
ship  between  the  children  of  Israel  and  the  American 
Indians.  Says  Dellenbaugh :  "Certain  resemblances  be 
tween  the  myths  of  the  Amerinds  and  those  of  the  Israel 
ites  increased  the  belief  that  the  American  race  is  the 
lost  tribes.  The  Mormons  specially  hold  to  this  opinion. 
But  there  is  positively  no  ground  for  the  belief." — North 
Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  403. 


1  "North  Americans  of  Yesterday,"   pp.  403-405. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


437 


As  well  might  it  be  assumed  that  the  American  race 
is  an  offshoot  from  the  Ethiopian,  for  the  folklore  of  our 
Southern  negro  presents  a  number  of  striking  resem 
blances  to  the  myths  and  traditions  of  the  American 
Indians.  "There  is  also  a  strong  resemblance,"  says  Del- 
lenbaugh,  "between  many  of  the  Amerind  myths  and 
stories  and  those  of  the  negro,  as  any  one  may  see 
who  will  compare  them  with  Harris's  delightful  Uncle 
Remus." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  405.  Shall 
we  decide  from  this  that  the  American  Indians  are  of 
African  descent? 

Ignatius  Donnelly,  who  experiences  little  difficulty  in 
finding  analogies,  also  traces  a  number  of  parallels  be 
tween  the  folklore  of  the  Indians  and  that  of  the  Greeks, 
Germans  and  Irish.2  Some  of  the  resemblances  amount 
almost  to  identities.  But  these  mythological  analogies 
are  comparatively  too  few  and  are  traceable  in  too  many 
directions  to  prove  anything.  They  must  be  considered 
as  mere  coincidences. 

It  is  claimed,  in  support  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  that 
certain  American  tribes  had  traditions  according  to 
which  their  ancestors  were  once  in  possession  of  a  sacred 
book  which  after  generations  was  hid  in  the  earth.  The 
following  extract  from  Boudinot  is  often  quoted: 
"There  is  a  tradition  related  by  an  aged  Indian  of  the 
Stockbridge  tribe,  that  their  fathers  were  once  in  posses 
sion  of  a  'Sacred  Book'  which  was  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  at  last  hid  in  the  earth, 
since  which  time  they  have  been  under  the  feet  of  their 
enemies." — A  Voice  of  Warning,  p.  82. 

Boudinot's  work  appeared  in  1816,  fourteen  years  be 
fore  the  Book  of  Mormon  came  out,  and  I  am  satisfied 


1  "Atlantis,"  pp.   150-160. 


438  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

that  it  was  this  story  that  suggested  the  idea  of  buried 
records  to  the  perpetrators  of  the  Mormon  fraud.  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find  that  this  story  has  ever  been 
substantiated;  its  value  to  us,  therefore,  is  small.  But 
there  is  another  version  of  it  as  given  by  Josiah  Priest: 
"Dr.  West,  of  Stockbridge  (Mass.),  relates  that  an 
^old  Indian  informed  him  that  his  fathers  in  this  coun 
try  had  not  long  since  been  in  the  possession  of  a  book 
which  they  had  for  a  long  time  carried  with  them ;  but, 
having  lost  the  knowledge  of  reading  it,  they  buried  it 
with  an  Indian  chief." — Book  of  Mormon  Lectures, 
P-  265. 

If  our  Mormon  friends  will  kindly  tell  us  the  name 
of  the  Indian  chief  with  whom  the  Nephites  buried  their 
plates,  we  may  be  able  to  place  more  credence  in  their 
application  of  this  story  to  the  depositing  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon  in  Hill  Cumorah. 

ESCHATOLOGY. 

Most  all  of  the  Indian  tribes  had  some  conception  of 
a  future  life.  Brinton  mentions  only  one,  the  Lower 
Pend  d'Oreilles,  among  whom  such  a  belief  was  entirely 
wanting.  The  New  England  tribes  called  the  soul 
chemung,  the  Quiche  natub,  the  Eskimo  tarnak,  the  Da 
kota  nagi  and  the  Pottawatamie  gepam,  which  words 
simply  mean  the  shadow.  In  the  Mohawk  the  word  for 
soul,  atonritz,  is  from  atonrion,  to  breathe.  The  mis 
sionaries  to  an  Oregon  tribe,  in  translating  the  Bible  into 
their  language,  finding  no  word  for  soul,  were  forced  to 
translate  it  by  a  word  meaning  "the  lower  gut."  The 
Iroquois  and  Algonkin  believed  that  man  had  two  souls, 
one  of  a  vegetative  character,  the  other  ethereal.  The 
Dakotas  increased  the  number,  with  Plato,  to  three,  one 
of  which  went  to  a  warm  country,  another  to  a  cold, 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


439 


while  the  third  stands  guard  over  the  body.  Certain 
Oregon  tribes  placed  a  soul  in  every  member  of  the 
human  body.1 

The  Book  of  Mormon  teaches  that  men  will  be  re 
warded  or  punished  according  to  the  degree  of  good  and 
evil  done  in  this  life.  This  was  the  belief  of  the  Ne- 
phites.  It  teaches  the  doctrines  of  a  heaven  of  eternal  bliss 
where  souls  purified  from  all  sin  and  saved  by  the  blood 
of  the  Son  of  God  will  live  forever,  and  a  hell  of  eternal 
punishments.  "I  would  desire  that  ye  should  consider 
on  the  blessed  and  happy  state  of  those  that  keep  the 
commandments  of  God.  For  behold,  they  are  blessed  in 
all  things,  both  temporal  and  spiritual;  and  if  they  hold 
out  faithful  to  the  end,  they  are  received  into  heaven, 
that  thereby  they  may  dwell  with  God  in  a  state  of  never- 
ending  happiness." — Mosiah  i:  12.  "And  now,  I  have 
spoken  the  words  which  the  Lord  God  hath  commanded 
me.  And  thus  saith  the  Lord:  They  shall  stand  as  a 
bright  testimony  against  this  people,  at  the  judgment 
day;  whereof,  they  shall  be  judged,  every  man,  accord 
ing  to  his  works,  whether  they  be  good,  or  -  -hether  they 
be  evil;  and  if  they  be  evil,  they  are  consigned  to  an 
awful  view  of  their  own  guilt  and  abominations,  which 
doth  cause  them  to  shrink  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord, 
into  a  state  of  misery  and  endless  torment,  from  whence 
they  can  no  more  return." — Mosiah  i :  16. 

But  no  such  theories  of  the  after-life  appear  in  the 
religions  of  the  Americans.  The  world  to  come  was 
usually  a  counterpart  of  this,  or,  if  they  believed  in  any 
rewards  and  punishments  at  all,  the  good  rewarded  was 
not  a  moral  good  nor  the  evil  punished  a  moral  evil. 
"Nowhere,"  says  Brinton,  "was  any  well-defined  doctrine 

1  "Myths,"  Chapter  IX. 


440  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

that  moral  turpitude  was  judged  and  punished  in  the 
next  world.  No  contrast  is  discoverable  between  a  place 
of  torments  and  a  realm  of  joy ;  at  the  worst,  but  a  nega 
tive  castigation  awaited  the  liar,  the  coward,  or  the  nig 
gard." — Myths,  p.  283. 

The  soul  of  the  Indian  was  not  thought  to  go  to  hell 
for  murder,  theft,  lying  or  rapine,  nor  to  heaven  for 
virtue  or  honesty;  but,  if  there  were  any  higher  places 
for  it  in  the  next  world,  they  were  reached  by  the  num 
ber  of  scalps  taken,  the  number  of  ponies  stolen  or  by 
the  attention  paid  to  certain  rude,  primitive  ceremonies. 
Parkman  says :  "The  primitive  Indian  believed  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  but  he  did  not  always  believe  in 
a  state  of  future  reward  and  punishment.  Nor,  when 
such  a  belief  existed,  was  the  good  to  be  rewarded  a 
moral  good,  or  the  evil  to  be  punished  a  moral  evil. 
Skillful  hunters,  brave  warriors,  men  of  influence  and 
consideration,  went,  after  death,  to  the  happy  hunting- 
ground;  while  the  slothful,  the  cowardly  and  the  weak 
were  doomed  to  eat  serpents  and  ashes  in  dreary  regions 
of  mist  and  darkness.  In  the  general  belief,  however, 
there  was  but  one  land  of  shades  for  all  alike." — The 
Jesuits,  p.  80. 

A  belief  in  a  heaven  and  a  hell  where  moral  good  is 
rewarded  and  moral  evil  is  punished  was  not  even  to  be 
found  among  the  more  civilized  nations.  Says  Brinton : 
"If  the  conception  of  a  place  of  moral  retribution  was 
known  at  all  to  the  race,  it  should  be  found  easily  recog 
nizable  in  Mexico,  Yucatan  or  Peru.  But  the  so-called 
'hells'  of  their  religions  have  no  such  significance,  and 
the  spirits  of  evil,  who  were  identified  by  early  writers 
with  Satan,  no  more  deserve  the  name  than  does  the 
Greek  Pluto." — Myths,  p.  291. 

With  the  Aztecs  the   souls   of  men   went  to  three 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


441 


places.  The  soul  of  the  warrior  slain  in  battle,  of  the 
prisoner  sacrificed  by  the  enemy  and  of  the  woman  dying 
in  childbirth,  went  to  the  dwelling  of  the  sun.  The  souls 
of  those  killed  by  lightning,  or  who  were  drowned,  or 
who  died  of  such  diseases  as  clropsy,  tumor  or  leprosy, 
as  well  as  the  children  sacrificed  to  Tlaloc,  went  to  a  cool, 
agreeable  place  called  Tlalocan ;  while  the  rest,  good,  bad 
and  indifferent,  went  to  a  "hell"  called  Mictlan,  the  only 
disagreeable  feature  of  which  was  darkness.1 

The  Mayas  believed  in  a  place  of  everlasting  delight 
and  voluptuous  repose,  where  the  good  recline  beneath 
the  shade  of  the  Yaxche,  eating  dainty  food  and  drink 
ing  delicious  drinks.  This  place  of  delight  was  especially 
open  to  those  who  committed  suicide  by  hanging,  as  the 
goddess  Ix  Tabai  carried  them  thither  herself.  The 
wicked,  Bancroft  says,  went  to  Mitnal,  but  Brinton  de 
clares  that  this  was  only  the  universal  state  to  which  all 
must  "come  at  last." ' 

A  certain  un warlike  tribe  of  Guatemala  believed  that 
only  those  who  died  a  natural  death  were  accorded  a 
future  life;  the  bodies  of  the  slain  were,  therefore,  left 
to  the  beasts  and  vultures.3 

With  the  Quiches  all  the  dead  went  to  Xibalba,  "the 
place  of  disappearance,"  supposed  to  be  under  the 
ground.4 

The  Tlascaltecs  thought  that  the  souls  of  people  of 
prominence  enter,  at  death,  into  the  bodies  of  the  higher 
animals  and  into  gems  and  clouds,  while  the  souls  of  less 
rank  pass  into  the  forms  of  the  lower  animals.5 

The  Nicaraguans  claimed  that  the  souls  of  slain  war- 

1  Bancroft,    III:  532. 

2  "Mayan    Primer,"   p.    44. 

3  Bancroft,    III:  542. 

4  "Myths,"   p.   292. 

5  Bancroft,   III:  539. 


442  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

riors  enter  the  sunrise  regions,  where  all  the  good  go, 
but  the  evil,  those  who  do  not  reverence  the  gods,  are 
doomed  to  annihilation  in  the  abode  of  Miquetanteot.1 

Among  the  Mosquitos  the  belief  prevailed  that  heaven 
is  open  to  all,  because  of  which  at  birth  they  tied  a  bag  of 
seeds  around  the  neck  of  the  infant  to  pay  his  ferriage 
across  the  river  of  death  beyond  which  lies  paradise.2 

When  the  Hidatsa  dies,  according  to  Dr.  Matthews, 
his  soul  lingers  for  four  nights  around  the  camp  or  vil 
lage,  when  it  departs  to  the  village  of  the  dead.  Here,  if 
it  has  been  brave,  self-denying  and  ambitious  on  earth, 
it  is  held  in  honor ;  if  not,  it  is  despised.3 

According  to  the  Chippewa  belief  the  soul  of  the  dead 
man  goes  to  a  region  to  the  south  situated  by  the  great 
ocean.  Before  reaching  it,  however,  a  river  has  to  be 
crossed,  the  only  bridge  over  which  is  a  large  snake. 
Those  who  die  by  drowning  never  reach  the  other  side, 
but  are  thrown  into  the  river  and  remain  there  forever. 
Others,  who  die  in  a  lethargy  or  a  trance,  coming  to  the 
stream,  are  prevented  from  crossing  by  serpents,  and 
return  to  reanimate  their  bodies.  Those  who  get  over 
spend  their  time  in  various  ways.  Those  who  have  been 
good  spend  it  in  singing  and  dancing  and  feeding  upon 
mushrooms,  which  are  there  very  abundant.  The  souls 
of  the  bad  are  simply  haunted  by  phantoms.  If  a  man 
has  been  wronged,  his  soul  may  haunt  his  persecutor.4 

None  of  these  beliefs  suggest  to  an  unbiased  mind 
the  eschato logical  theories  advanced  in  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon.  In  the  main  the  tribes  made  no  distinction  between 
the  states  of  the  good  and  the  bad  in  the  world  to  come, 

1  Bancroft,  III:  543. 

2  Bancroft,  III:  543. 

3  "First  Rept.   Bu.  Am.   Ethno.,"  p.   199. 
*  "First  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  199. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


443 


and  where  they  did  these  terms  did  not  convey  to  their 
minds  the  same  senses  that  they  convey  to  ours.  If  they 
had  a  heaven  at  all,  it  was  not  reached  by  moral  well 
doing,  but,  as  Brinton  tells  us,  "by  the  manner  of  death, 
the  punctuality  with  which  certain  sepulchral  rites  were 
fulfilled  by  relatives,  or  other  similar  arbitrary  circum 
stance  beyond  the  power  of  the  individual  to  control."  ] 
If  the  ancient  Americans  held  to  the  beliefs  stated  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  how  is  their  total  absence  among  the 
American  Indians  to  be  accounted  for? 

THE    CHARACTER    OF    THE    ANCIENT    AMERICAN    RELIGIONS 
AS  REVEALED  IN   THE  REMAINS. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  of  this  chapter  I  have  endeav 
ored  to  show  that  the  Mormon  claim  that  the  American 
Indians  originally  believed  in  a  single  Great  Spirit,  a 
Trinity,  the  crucifixion  of  Christ,  a  devil,  a  heaven  and  a 
hell,  practiced  baptism  and  celebrated  the  eucharist — evi 
dences  of  the  former  existence  of  Christianity — meets 
with  no  confirmation  in  either  the  beliefs  and  ceremonies 
of  existing  tribes,  their  myths  and  traditions  or  their 
religious  terms.  Our  present  inquiry  will  be :  Is  the 
theory,  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  Jews  and  Chris 
tians,  suggested  in  the  relics  and  remains? 

A  large  proportion  of  the  antiquities  of  America  are 
sacred  antiquities.  In  North  America  we  have  the  temple 
mounds  which  are  known  to  have  been  used  in  some  in 
stances  as  bases  for  religious  structures ;  in  Mexico,  the 
crumbling  temples  of  Teotihuacan,  "The  City  of  the 
Gods,"  and  the  pyramids  of  Cholula ;  in  Central  America, 
the  temples  of  Palenque  and  the  idols  and  altars  of 
Copan ;  and  in  Peru,  the  mysterious  edifices  of  Pacha- 

1  "Myths,"  p.  283. 


444  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

camac  and  Tiahuanaco.  These  antiquities  all  bear  wit 
ness  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  religious  peoples 
who  worshiped  gods,  believed  in  a  hereafter,  offered  sac 
rifices  and  performed  various  religious  rites. 

In  the  Old  World  the  archaeologist  has  little  difficulty 
in  arriving  at  a  conclusion  as  to  the  general  character  of 
the  ancient  religions.  The  idols,  the  altars,  the  temples, 
the  religious  paintings  and  the  hieroglyphical  inscriptions 
of  Egypt  and  Assyria  leave  him  with  no  doubts  as  to  the 
idolatrous  character  of  the  ancient  religions  of  those 
countries.  It  requires  but  a  passing  glance  for  him  to 
see  that  they  did  not  partake  of  the  distinctive  features 
of  Judaism  and  Christianity.  But  the  evidences  in  Egypt 
and  Assyria  show  no  more  conclusively  that  the  old  re 
ligions  were  not  Judaism  and  Christianity  than  do  those 
of  America.  Here,  too,  the  idols,  the  temples,  the  altars, 
the  religious  paintings  and  the  hieroglyphical  inscriptions 
all  testify  to  the  idolatrous  character  of  the  ancient  wor 
ship.  There  is  not  a  figment  of  evidence  to  sustain  the 
theory  that  the  builders  of  Copan  and  Quirigua  were 
monotheists,  or  that  the  builders  of  Chimu,  in  Peru,  and 
Cholula  and  Teotihuacan,  in  Mexico,  were  Jews  and 
Christians.  I  shall  now  put  before  the  reader  a  number 
of  reasons  based  upon  the  archaeology  of  the  country,  for 
believing  that  the  ancient  Americans  were  all  pagans  and 
idolaters. 

i.  We  infer  the  heathen  character  of  the  ancient  relig 
ions  of  America  from  the  utter  absence  on  this  continent 
of  both  Jewish  and  Christian  antiquities. 

Although  the  Book  of  Mormon  declares  that  as  soon 
as  the  Nephites  had  become  fully  settled  in  Peru  they 
built  a  temple  "like  unto  Solomon's,"  and  that  afterwards 
they  erected  "temples,"  "sanctuaries"  and  "synagogues," 
"after  the  manner  of  the  Jews,"  the  Mormon  archaeolo- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  445 

gist  has  never  been  able  to  point  out  the  remains  of  a 
single  Jewish  religious  edifice  on  the  continent.  Neither 
has  he  been  able  to  point  out  a  single  religious  structure 
that  bears  evidence  of  ever  having  been  used  in  Christian 
worship.  The  temples  of  America  were  no  more  like  the 
religious  edifices  of  the  Jews  and  Christians  than  a  light 
house  is  like  the  Mosque  of  Omar.  They  were  built  upon 
a  different  plan  and  were  adapted  to  entirely  different 
modes  of  worship.  The  temples  of  Peru  we  know  were 
used  chiefly  for  the  worship  of  the  sun  and  moon,  while 
many  of  those  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  constructed 
for  the  same  purpose.  The  Book  of  Mormon  claim  that 
the  Nephites  in  the  latter  section  of  the  continent  built 
"temples,"  "synagogues"  and  "sanctuaries"  of  wood  and 
cement  is  positively  refuted  both  by  the  absence  of  such 
structures  and  the  fact  that  the  Mound  Builders  used 
neither  cement  nor  mortar.  In  Mexico  there  are  as  few 
grounds  for  this  claim  as  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  No 
archaeologist  that  I  have  ever  heard  of,  whose  writings 
are  considered  authoritative,  mentions  the  finding  of  a 
single  Jewish  or  Christian  temple,  altar,  painting  or 
inscription.  With  one  accord  they  all  declare  that  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  those  countries  were  pagans  and 
idolaters.  It  will  not  do  to  claim  that  the  ravages  of  time 
and  of  the  warlike  Lamanites  have  completely  obliterated 
every  trace  of  these  structures,  for,  considering  the  wide 
spread  extent  of  these  faiths  and  the  length  of  time  in 
which  they  were  held,  this  would  be  next  to  impossible. 
Egypt  and  Assyria,  too,  have  had  their  wars,  and  time 
and  the  elements  have  affected  their  ruins,  but,  neverthe 
less,  enough  data  remain  for  the  archaeologist  to  deter 
mine  without  difficulty  the  character  of  their  worship,  the 
names  of  their  gods  and  many  of  their  religious  cere 
monies  and  beliefs.  If  the  ancient  Americans  were  Jews 


446  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

and  Christians,  will  the  Mormon  Church  kindly  tell  us 
where  the  archaeological  proof  of  it  is  to  be  found? 

2.  We  infer  the  heathen  character  of  the  ancient 
American  religions  from  the  similarity  in  plan  of  the 
ancient  places  of  worship  to  those  of  historic  tribes. 

No  matter  where  you  may  go,  the  ancient  structures 
were  built  after  the  pattern  of  the  modern.  This  is  true 
in  Peru,  Central  America,  Mexico  and  the  Mississippi 
Valley. 

It  will  hardly  be  denied  that,  when  the  Europeans 
first  met  the  American  tribes,  the  latter  were  all  idolaters 
and  pagans.  In  Peru,  Central  America  and  Mexico, 
as  well  as  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  in  the  less 
civilized  parts  of  the  continent,  the  early  settlers  found 
the  natives  worshiping  animals,  the  elements,  deified 
heroes  and  idols,  offering  human,  animal  and  vegetable 
sacrifices  and  practicing  heathen  rites.  All  of  these  tribes 
and  nations  had  places  of  worship  varying  in  splendor 
and  stability  from  the  bark-covered  hut  of  the  North 
American  medicine  man  to  the  large  and  elaborately 
decorated  structures  of  Mexico  and  Peru. 

Among  the  Natchez,  and  certain  other  tribes  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  the  temples  were  built  upon  the  sum 
mits  of  truncated  pyramids,  and  in  them  perpetual  fires 
were  kept  burning  in  honor  of  the  sun.  "The  confirm 
atory  testimony  of  early  explorers,"  says  Nadaillac, 
"shows  that  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  as  well  as  the 
districts  now  forming  the  States  of  Ohio,  Florida  and 
Georgia,  was  inhabited  by  warlike  nations,  who  tilled  the 
ground,  lived  in  fortified  towns,  erected  their  temples  on 
eminences,  often  artificial,  and  worshiped  the  sun.  These 
were  the  men  who  repulsed  Narvaez  when  he  endeavored 
to  conquer  Florida  in  1528." — Prehistoric  America,  p. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


447 


The  temples  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  were 
also  built  upon  the  summits  of  high  and  artificial  emi 
nences.  The  great  temple  of  Mexico,  which  was  erected 
only  a  few  years  before  the  Discovery,  was  built  upon  a 
high  mound,  which,  with  the  court  at  its  base,  covered 
the  large  square  now  occupied  by  the  great  cathedral. 
The  court  was  paved  with  stones  which  were  so  smooth 
than  the  Spanish  cavalry  hardly  dared  to  venture  upon 
them,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  wall  made  of  dressed 
and  sculptured  stone  and  mortar,  4,800  feet  in  circum 
ference,  nine  feet  high  and  built  facing  the  four  cardinal 
points.  It  was  also  pierced  by  four  gates.  From  the 
center  of  the  court  rose  the  great  pyramid,  375  feet  long 
by  300  broad  at  the  base  and  325  by  250  at  the  summit 
and  86  feet  high.  The  mound  rose  in  five  superimposed, 
perpendicular  terraces,  was  composed  of  earth,  stones 
and  clay,  and  was  covered  with  square  pieces  of  stone 
of  equal  size,  fitted  together  with  cement  and  coated  with 
lime  or  gypsum.  At  the  northwest  corner  the  ledges 
were  graded  to  form  a  series  of  114  steps,  each  about 
nine  inches  high,  leading  from  terrace  to  terrace,  and  so 
arranged  that  the  edifice  had  to  be  completely  encircled 
to  reach  the  summit.  The  steps  were  of  stone,  and  the 
platform  on  the  top  of  the  mound  was  of  the  same 
material  and  polished  like  the  court  below.  On  the  sum 
mit,  at  the  east  end  of  the  platform,  stood  two  towers, 
each  with  three  stories  and  each  fifty-six  feet  in  height. 
The  lower  story  of  each  was  made  of  masonry,  the  two 
upper  of  wood,  with  wooden  cupolas,  well  painted, 
adorning  their  roofs.  The  sanctuaries  were  in  the  lower 
stories,  one  being  dedicated  to  Huitzilopochtli,  the  other 
to  Tezcatlipoca.  The  images  of  these  gods  stood  upon 
stone  altars,  three  or  four  feet  high,  and  were  covered 
with  rich  curtains  hung  with  tassels  and  pellets  of  gold, 


448  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Before  these  altars  stood  the  terrible  stone  of  sacrifice, 
a  green  block  five  feet  long  by  three  wide  and  three  high, 
bulging  in  the  middle  so  as  to  make  the  extraction  of 
the  heart  easy.  The  walls  and  ceilings  were  painted  with 
monstrous  figures  and  ornamented  with  stucco  and 
carved  woodwork.  In  1486,  at  the  dedication  of  this 
temple,  72,344  captives  were  sacrificed,  and  ever  after 
wards,  up  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Aztec  people,  its  altars 
were  hardly  ever  dry  from  the  blood  of  man.1 

The  temples  of  the  Mayas,  at  the  time  of  the  Con 
quest,  resembled  those  of  Mexico,  in  being  built  upon 
high  eminences  which  were  made  of,  or  faced  with, 
stone.  In  speaking  of  the  Spaniards,  Bancroft  says : 
"They  found  the  immense  stone  pyramids  and  buildings 
of  most  of  the  cities  still  used  by  the  natives  for  religious 
services,  although  not  for  dwellings,  as  they  had  prob 
ably  never  been  so  used  even  by  their  builders." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  281.  This  was  true  of  the  religious 
structures  of  Uxmal,  Tuloom,  Chichen  Itza  and  Peten, 
which  are  comparatively  modern  cities. 

The  reader  has  now  set  before  him  the  chief  features 
of  the  religious  architecture  of  historic  tribes,  and  is 
prepared  to  discern  the  similarity  between  it  and  the 
religious  architecture  of  the  ancient  inhabitants. 

Everything  goes  to  prove  that  the  "veritable  Mound 
Builders,"  like  the  Natchez,  built  their  temples  of  perish 
able  materials  upon  artificial  eminences.  The  so-called 
temple  mounds  are  found  scattered  throughout  the  Mis 
sissippi  and  Ohio  Valleys.  Chief  among  them  are  those  at 
Marietta,  Ohio ;  Cahokia,  Illinois,  and  Seltzertown,  Mis 
sissippi.  As  these  mounds  are  identical  in  size  and  shape 
with  those  found  in  process  of  erection,  or  used,  by  his- 

1  Bancroft,  II:  577. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


449 


toric  tribes  when  the  Spanish  and  French  settlers  first 
came  into  the  country,  we  can  not  escape  the  conclusion 
that  the  Mound  Builders,  like  the  Natchez  and  other  his 
toric  tribes,  employed  them  as  bases  for  their  temples  of 
the  sun.  And  this  is  the  opinion  of  our  archaeologists.  Says 
Foster :  '"The  Mound-builders  worshiped  the  elements — 
the  sun,  the  moon,  and  particularly  fire.  They  erected 
their  fire-altars  for  sacrifice  on  the  highest  summits." — 
Prehistoric  Races,  p.  182.  Says  MacLean:  "It  is  not 
improbable  that  the  Mound  Builders  erected  their  great 
temple  mounds  to  the  worship  of  the  sun,  moon  and 
stars." — The  Mound  Builders,  p.  126.  And  Peet  declares 
that  "some  of  the  mound  relics  evidently  present  the 
tokens  of  a  combined  animal  and  sun  worship,  and  some 
even  of  combined  sun  worship  and  idol  worship." — 
Myths  and  Symbols,  p.  126. 

Chief  among  the  ancient  temples  of  Mexico  are  those 
of  Cholula  and  Teotihuacan.  At  both  of  these  places  the 
ruins  have  an  antiquity  reaching  back  beyond  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Aztec  period.  But  the  temples  of  both  were 
built  upon  the  general  plan  of  the  temples  of  the  historic 
tribes,  and,  further,  it  is  known  that  they  were  not  built 
for  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  but  of  heathen  divinities. 
The  great  temple  mound  at  Cholula  is  said  to  be  7,740 
feet  square  at  the  base,  formerly  rising  to  the  height  of 
two  hundred  feet,  with  a  platform  two  hundred  feet 
square  on  the  summit.  It  was  originally  terraced  like 
the  pyramid  of  Mexico,  but,  instead  of  its  sides  being 
faced  with  stone,  they  were  faced  with  sun-dried  bricks. 
It  was  also  built  facing  the  four  cardinal  points.  While 
it  certainly  dates  back  to  the  earliest  period  of  Toltec 
history,  and  perhaps  further,  it  was  still  used  at  the  time 
of  the  Conquest  and  was  the  scene  of  a  fierce  conflict 
between  the  natives  and  the  Conquistadores.  Tradition 


450  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

says  that  it  was  erected  in  honor  of  the  Nahua  god  of 
the  air,  Quetzalcoatl,  and  there  seems  to  be  no  just 
reason  for  denying  this  explanation  of  its  origin.  At 
Teotihuacan  we  find  two  immense  pyramids  and  the 
Camino  de  los  Muertos,  "Pathway  of  the  Dead."  The 
larger  of  these  pyramids  is  known  to  have  been  "built  for 
the  worship  of  the  sun.  It  is  about  2,800  feet  in  circum 
ference  at  the  base  and  180  feet  high,  the  level  summit 
being  about  one  hundred  feet  square.  It  was  divided 
into  four  stories  by  three  terraces,  each  between  twenty 
and  thirty  feet  wide.  The  remains  of  a  zigzag  stairway 
are  still  visible  on  the  east  side,  though  it  is  supposed 
that  the  real  stairway  was  on  the  west  side.  The  other 
temple,  that  of  the  moon,  is  about  two  thousand  feet  in 
circumference  at  the  base  and  is  of  proportional  height. 
It  is  wholly  impossible  that  the  temples  of  Cholula  and 
Teotihuacan  were  built  for  Jewish  or  Christian  worship, 
for  they  were  not  constructed  "after  the  manner  of  the 
Jews,"  while  their  similarity  to  modern  structures,  with 
the  traditions  of  their  origin,  prove  that  they  were 
erected  for  the  worship  of  heathen  gods. 

In  Central  America  the  most  ancient  ruins,  probably, 
are  those  of  Palenque,  Copan  and  Quirigua.  At  Pa- 
lenque  the  best-preserved  ruins  are  those  of  the  "Pal 
ace,"  and  of  the  temples  of  the  "Three  Tablets,"  of  the 
"Bas-reliefs,"  of  the  "Cross"  and  of  the  "Sun."  All  of 
these  structures,  like  those  of  Yucatan,  were  built  upon 
the  summits  of  truncated  pyramids  which  were  origi 
nally  faced  with  stone.  This  feature,  with  the  similarity 
of  the  hieroglyphics  to  those  of  Yucatan,  proves  that  the 
builders  of  Palenque  were  the  ancestors  of  the  Mayas. 
The  structures  of  this  city  are  lavishly  decorated  with 
bas-reliefs  and  sculpture  work,  yet  it  hardly  needs  to 
be  said  that  none  of  the  figures  represent  religious 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


45i 


scenes  familiar  to  Jews  and  Christians.  They  are  all  of 
heathen  character  and  show  that  the  religion  of  the 
ancient  differed  but  little,  if  any,  from  the  religion  of 
the  modern  inhabitants.  At  both  Copan  and  Quirigua 
we  meet  with  pyramids  and  hieroglyphics  similar  to  those 
of  Palenque  and  Yucatan. 

The  fact  that  both  the  ancient  and  modern  inhabit 
ants  of  North  America  employed  truncated,  terraced  and 
stone- faced  pyramids  as  bases  for  their  temples  strongly 
implies  that  if  their  religions  were  not  identical,  they 
were  certainly  similar. 

3.  We  infer  the  heathen  character  of  the  ancient 
American  religions  from  the  presence  of  idols  in  the 
most  ancient  remains. 

On  the  idols  from  the  mounds,  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet  writes 
as  follows :  "The  idols  found  in  the  mounds  are  very 
significant.  These  images  remind  us  of  those  sometimes 
seen  on  the  facades  of  the  palaces  in  Central  America. 
They  also  remind  us  of  the  worship  of  the  god  of  war, 
of  rain,  of  death,  and  the  god  of  light,  which  prevailed 
in  Mexico.  These  idols  became  scattered,  some  being 
found  in  Ohio  and  various  parts  of  the  Mississippi  Val 
ley;  but  the  images  found  in  the  so-called  Mead  houses' 
of  the  southern  tribes  indicate  that  their  religious  system 
was  different  from  that  of  the  Ohio  tribes.  The  idols  of 
the  stone-grave  people  are  of  various  sizes,  from  large 
stone  images,  two  feet  or  more  in  height,  to  small  clay 
figures  not  over  three  inches  in  length.  They  were  made 
of  sandstone,  limestone,  fluor  spar  and  stalactite,  as  well 
as  of  clay.  Some  have  been  discovered  in  caves,  others 
on  the  summits  of  high  mounds,  a  few  in  the  depths  of 
the  mounds;  but  a  large  majority  have  been  picked  up 
from  the  surface.  One  of  these  is  represented  in  the 
cut.  It  was  found  in  a  cave  in  Knox  County,  Tennessee. 


452  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

It  may  have  been  fashioned  from  a  large  stalactite.  It  is 
twenty  inches  in  length  and  weighs  thirty-seven  pounds. 
It  shows  a  prominent  nose,  heavy  eyebrows,  full  cheeks, 
broad  square  chin  and  retreating  forehead;  all  of  which 
are  features  of  the  Muscogees  or  Southern  Indians.  The 
mouth  is  formed  by  a  projecting  ring;  a  groove  runs 
across  the  face,  between  the  nose  and  mouth;  in  this 
respect  it  resembles  the  sculptured  figures  found  in  Mex 
ico  and  Central  America.  Another  idol  in  a  sitting  posi 
tion  was  found  in  Perry  County,  Tennessee.  Gen.  G.  P. 
Thruston,  the  best  authority  on  the  antiquities  of  Ten 
nessee,  has  described  several  stone  idols  and  terra-cotta 
images  found  in  the  stone-grave  settlements  at  Nash 
ville.  These  show  flattened  forehead  and  vertical  occi 
put,  characteristic  of  the  crania  of  the  stone-grave  race. 
He  says  the  features  of  the  face  were  of  a  heavy  Ethi 
opian  cast,  similar  to  those  of  the  dark  image  in  the 
pottery  idols  shown  in  the  plate.  Traces  of  garments 
are  sometimes  found  on  images  of  clay.  The  hands  of  the 
clay  figures  were  frequently  found  in  the  same  position. 
Mr.  Caleb  Atwater  mentions  two  idols,  found  in  a  tumulus 
near  Nashville,  Tennessee ;  another,  near  Natchez,  Mis 
sissippi.  Thomas  Jefferson  mentions  two  Indian  busts, 
found  on  the  Cumberland  River.  Du  Pratz  says  the 
Natchez  had  a  temple  filled  with  idols,  images  of  men 
and  women  of  stone  and  baked  clay.  According  to  the 
'Brevis  Narratio/  the  Indians  venerated,  as  an  idol,  the 
column  which  Ribault  had  erected,  to  which  they  offered 
the  finest  fruits,  perfumed  oils,  bows  and  arrows,  and 
decorated  it  with  wreaths  of  flowers." — The  Mound 
Builders,  pp.  336-339. 

These  idols  are  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  Mound 
Builders  were  neither  Jews  nor  Christians,  but  idolaters. 

The  idols  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  are  like- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  453 

wise  found  among  the  most  ancient  ruins,  indicating  that 
the  builders  of  the  ancient  cities  were  idolaters.  At 
Panuco,  Mexico,  Vecelli  found  thirty  small  archaeologi 
cal  specimens,  among  them  rudely  shaped  figures  of 
females,  cut  mostly  from  limestone,  with  peculiar  head 
dresses.  At  Tusapan,  in  the  same  country,  fragments  of 
stone  images,  made  to  represent  human  and  animal 
forms,  were  discovered.  At  Mitla,  in  the  State  of 
Oajaca,  a  stone  idol  was  found  which  represents  a  human 
figure  seated  and  cross-armed,  with  a  peculiar,  tube- 
shaped  ornament  running  horizontally  along  the  side  of 
the  face.  And  in  the  States  of  Oajaca,  Zachila  and 
Cuilapa  certain  terra-cotta  images  were  taken  from  the 
graves.  As  the  historic  tribes  of  these  localities  wor 
shiped  similar  images,  it  seems  conclusive  that  the  an 
cient  inhabitants  were  idolaters. 

Copan  is  acknowledged  by  nearly  all  archaeologists 
to  be  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  cities  of  America, 
which  the  Mormons  also  maintain  by  giving  it  a  possible 
identification  with  the  Jaredite  capital,  Moron.  Yet  its 
builders  were  idolaters,  as  is  shown  by  the  presence  of 
at  least  fourteen  immense  stone  idols  among  its  ruins. 
Of  eight  whose  dimensions  are  given,  the  smallest  is 
nearly  twelve  feet  high  by  three  and  a  half  wide  and 
thick.  In  each  a  human  face,  generally  with  calm  and 
pleasing  countenance,  adorns  the  center  in  front,  having 
in  some  cases  a  beard  and  a  mustache.  The  hands,  in 
nearly  every  instance,  rest  back  to  back  upon  the  breast, 
while  above  and  around  the  head  is  "a  complicated  mass 
of  the  most  elaborate  ornamentation,  which  utterly  defies 
verbal  description."  These  idols  bear  every  evidence  of 
being  as  old  as  the  other  monuments,  and  the  presence  of 
altars  directly  in  front  of  them  proves  beyond  doubt  that 
they  were  the  objects  of  worship. 


454  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

At  Quirigua,  three  or  four  hundred  yards  from  the 
principal  pyramid,  a  group  of  sculptured  idols  were 
found  resembling  somewhat  closely  those  at  Copan.  The 
largest  of  the  group  is  twenty-six  feet  high,  and  the 
smallest  nine  feet.  On  these  idols  Bancroft  says:  "The 
idols  scattered  over  the  surface  of  the  ground,  instead  of 
being  located  on  the  pyramids,  may  indicate  here,  as  at 
Copan,  that  the  elevations  served  as  seats  for  spectators 
during  the  religious  ceremonies,  rather  than  as  temples 
or  altars  on  which  sacrifice  was  made." — Native  Races, 
Vol.  IV.,  p.  114. 

But  this  form  of  stone  images  was  not  confined  to 
Copan  and  Quirigua  alone,  but  has  also  been  observed  in 
other  localities  into  which  the  Maya  tribes  spread.  In 
1852  Colonel  Mendez  accidentally  discovered  near  Lake 
Peten,  on  the  southern  borders  of  Yucatan,  two  ruins 
which  consisted  of  traces  of  stone  walls  and  monoliths 
sculptured  in  high  relief  and  decorated  with  figures  re 
sembling  those  on  the  monoliths  of  Copan  and  Quirigua. 
In  the  same  locality  he  found  "a  collection  of  sculptured 
blocks  upon  a  round  disk,  on  which  are  carved  hiero 
glyphics  and  figures  of  the  sun  and  moon  with  a  pros 
trate  human  form  before  them." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
IV.,  p.  138.  This  goes  to  prove  that  the  ancient  inhab 
itants  of  this  locality  were  sun  and  moon  worshipers.  At 
Lorillard  City  Charnay  found  a  stone  image  of  enormous 
size,  with  its  head  adorned  with  a  head-dress  spread  out 
in  the  form  of  a  fan. 

Idols  from  the  cities  of  Yucatan  are  rare,  yet  some 
have  been  found.  The  probabilities  are  that  such  as 
escaped  the  hands  of  the  fanatical  Spanish  priests  were 
buried  by  the  natives  to  prevent  their  desecration.  Ban 
croft  says:  "The  scarcity  of  idols  among  the  Maya 
antiquities  must  be  regarded  as  extraordinary.  The 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


455 


double-headed  animal  and  the  statue  of  the  old  woman 
at  Uxmal ;  the  nude  figure  carved  on  a  long,  flat  stone, 
and  the  small  statue  in  two  pieces  at  Nohpat ;  the  idol 
at  Zayi,  reported  as  in  use  for  a  fountain ;  the  rude,  un- 
sculptured  monoliths  of  Sijoh ;  the  scattered  and  vaguely 
mentioned  idols  on  the  plains  of  Mayapan,  and  the  fig 
ures  in  terra  cotta  collected  by  Norman  at  Campeche, 
complete  the  list;  and  many  of  these  may  have  been 
originally  merely  decorations  for  buildings.  That  the 
inhabitants  of  Yucatan  were  idolaters  there  is  no  pos 
sible  doubt,  and  in  connection  with  the  magnificent 
shrines  and  temples  erected  by  them,  stone  representa 
tives  of  their  deities  carved  with  all  their  aboriginal  art 
and  rivaling  or  excelling  the  grand  obelisks  of  Copan, 
might  naturally  be  sought  for.  But  in  view  of  the  facts, 
it  must  be  concluded  that  the  Maya  idols  were  small,  and 
that  such  as  escaped  the  fanatic  iconoclasm  of  the  Span 
ish  ecclesiastics  were  buried  by  the  natives,  as  the  only 
means  of  preventing  their  desecration." — Native  Races, 
Vol.  IV.,  p.  277. 

The  idols  from  Peru  are  also  few  in  number,  most 
of  them  being  small.  The  larger  part,  probably,  being 
made  of  gold  and  silver,  went  to  the  melting-pots  of  the 
Spanish  invaders.  At  Pachacamac,  however,  the  Span 
iards  found  a  temple,  well  painted  and  decorated,  in  a 
small  recess  of  which  there  stood  a  wooden  idol  of  the 
Creator,  at  the  feet  of  which  they  found  numerous  gold 
and  silver  ornaments,  the  gifts  of  the  devotees.  At  Tia- 
huanaco,  Cieca  de  Leon,  who  accompanied  Pizarro,  found 
two  stone  idols  in  human  form,  apparently  made  by 
skillful  artificers.  One  of  these,  which  was  carried  to 
La  Paz  in  1842,  is  said  to  have  measured  three  and  a 
half  yards  in  length,  and  to  have  been  clothed  in  long 
vestments  different  from  those  worn  by  the  Incas  at  the 


456  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

time  of  the  Conquest.  In  1846  several  others  were  dug 
ao  in  the  same  vicinity,  with  some  very  large  blocks  of 
cut  stone,  which  were  used  for  millstones. 

The  presence  of  idols  in  the  antiquities  of  both  North 
and  South  America,  with  the  utter  absence  of  both  Jew 
ish  and  Christian  remains,  indicates  very  plainly  that  the 
ancient  inhabitants  were  idolaters. 

4.  The  presence  of  altars  among  the  antiquities  of 
America,  which  bear  marks  of  having  been  used  for  the 
offering  of  human  sacrifices,  is  another  strong  proof  of 
the  heathen  character  of  the  ancient  religions. 

In  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  Valleys  archaeologists 
have  found  a  class  of  mounds  which  they  have  called 
"altar  mounds."  The  peculiar  feature  about  them,  and 
that  which  gives  them  their  name,  is  an  altar  of  clay  or 
stone  found  in  the  center  and  resting  upon  the  original 
surface.  Upon  these  altars  are  sometimes  found  charred 
human  bones,  from  which  it  has  been  inferred  that  they 
were  employed  as  the  places  where  human  sacrifices 
were  offered  to  heathen  divinities.  Still  others  hold  that 
they  were  used,  as  they  certainly  have  been  in  historic 
times,  for  the  burning  of  prisoners  at  the  stake,  which 
cruel  practice  was  semi-religious  in  character.  In  either 
case  their  builders  were  heathenish  and  Idolatrous. 

At  Copan,  directly  in  front  of  the  statues  or  idols 
previously  described,  stand  blocks  of  stone  which  were 
used  for  altars.  These  stones  are  six  or  seven  feet 
square  and  four  feet  high  and  take  a  variety  of  forms. 
Their  sides  are  also  ornamented  with  sculpture  work  and 
hieroglyphics.  One  of  these  altars  is  made  to  represent 
the  back  of  a  tortoise;  another  is  carved  to  represent  the 
head  of  death.  On  the  upper  surface  of  each  there  are 
a  number  of  grooves  which,  says  Bancroft,  "are  strongly 
suggestive  of  flowing  blood  and  slaughtered  victims." 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  457 

At  Quirigua  similar  altars  have  been  {_nd,  however 
not  in  front  of  the  idols,  but  buried  at  some  distance 
from  them  in  moss  and  earth.  They  are  most  all  of 
oval  form,  with  hieroglyphics  covering  their  sides,  while 
one  of  them  is  supported  upon  two  colossal  heads  and  is 
inclosed,  with  one  of  the  idols,  by  a  wall  with  steps. 

At  Palenque,  in  the  Temple  of  the  Cross,  and  directly 
in  front  of  the  tablet  of  the  cross,  is  an  altar.  While  at 
Orizava,  in  Vera  Cruz,  has  been  found  a  sacrificial  yoke, 
made  of  green  jasper,  identical  in  shape  with  the  sacri 
ficial  yokes  of  the  Aztecs.  These  yokes  were  put  around 
the  neck  of  the  victim  to  hold  the  head  while  the  heart 
was  being  extracted. 

Tradition  declares  that  human  sacrificing  dates  from 
a  remote  antiquity  and  that  it  was  practiced,  with  an 
intermission  or  two,  by  the  tribes  of  both  the  Mayan  and 
Nahuan  stocks  down  to  the  time  of  the  Conquest.  Of 
the  human  sacrifices  among  the  Mayas  Nadaillac  says : 
"These  sacrifices,  which  dated  from  a  very  remote  antiq 
uity,  lasted  until  the  Spanish  Conquest." — Prehistoric 
America,  p.  268.  Among  the  Nahua  tribes  they  dated 
from  pre-Toltec  times,  but  afterwards,  under  the  regime 
of  Quetzalcoatl,  were  done  away  with,  and  the  practice 
was  not  resumed  until  a  few  centuries  before  the  Dis 
covery.  Says  Bancroft:  "Most  prominent  among  his 
peculiar  reforms,  and  the  one  that  is  reported  to  have  con 
tributed  most  to  his  downfall,  was  his  unvarying  opposi 
tion  to  human  sacrifice.  This  sacrifice  had  prevailed 
from  pre-Toltec  times  at  Teotihuacan,  and  had  been 
adopted  more  or  less  extensively  in  Culhuacan  and  Tol- 
lan." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  261. 

5.  The  identification  of  certain  etchings,  paintings 
and  carvings  of  the  old  races,  as  representations  or 
symbols  of  divinities  worshiped  &v  historic  tribes,  is 


458  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

another  proof  of  the  heathen  character  of  the  ancient 
religions. 

Carvings,  images  and  places  of  worship  of  such 
divinities  as  Quetzalcoatl,  or  Kukulkan,  Tlaloc  and 
Itzamna,  have  been  discovered  in  the  ruins  of  Uxmal, 
Chichen  Itza  and  Palenque. 

On  this  point  we  have  the  following  from  Rev.  S.  D. 
Peet:  "M.  Charnay  has  described  the  pyramid  called 
El  Castillo,  in  Chichen  Itza,  and  thinks  that  the  building 
on  it  was  a  shrine  to  Cuculkan  or  Quetzalcoatl,  for  this 
is  the  pyramid  which  has  the  serpents  for  balustrades, 
and  the  feathered  serpent  is  the  symbol  of  this  'Culture 
Hero.'  He  has  ascribed  the  shrine  which  contains  cross 
No.  2,  at.  Palenque,  to  Tlaloc,  for  he  recognizes  the  eye 
of  Tlaloc  in  one  of  the  figures  on  the  facades  and  thinks 
the  palm  leaves  and  masks  were  also  emblems.  The 
shrines  at  Uxmal  and  Lorillard,  especially  the  one  with 
heavy  cornice  and  massive  pillars,  he  also  ascribes  to 
Cukulkan,  as  he  recognizes  the  feather-headed  serpent 
in  the  pillars.  The  stone  lintel  at  Lorillard,  which  con 
tains  a  seated  figure,  he  ascribes  to  the  same  divinity. 
The  statue  represented  as  lying  upon  the  back  and  hold 
ing  a  vase  in  the  hands,  which  was  found  by  M.  Le 
Plongeon  at  Chichen  Itza,  he  ascribes  to  Tlaloc,  inas 
much  as  there  are  carved  on  the  stone  a  sheet  of  water, 
aquatic  plants  and  fish,  all  of  which  are  the  emblems  of 
Tlaloc.  Others,  however,  think  it  represents  the  Maya 
Bacchus,  or  god  of  wine.  The  doorpost  on  the  Castillo 
at  Chichen  Itza,  which  has  sculptured  figures  -vith  head 
dress,  girdle,  sash,  sandal,  wand  and  a  bearded  face, 
with  the  vine  expressing  speech  extending  from  the 
mouth,  Charnay  thinks  represents  Quetzalcoatl,  on  ac 
count  of  the  beard.  Another  figure  on  the  capital  above 
the  pillars  has  a  turban  with  a  feather  head-dress  and 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


459 


stands  with  upraised  arms  supporting  the  entablature. 
He  wears  large  bracelets,  a  collar  of  precious  stones,  a 
shield,  a  richly  embroidered  mantle,  and  has  a  long,  flow 
ing  beard  and  the  same  symbols  of  speech  in  front  of 
him.  This  figure,  Charnay  thinks,  also  represents  Quet- 
zalcoatl.  There  is  a  figure  or  a  statue  standing  on  a 
pyramid  with  a  peculiar  head-dress,  a  garment  or  flowing 
robe  with  crosses  upon  it,  but  which  has  no  beard.  This 
statue,  Dr.  Hamy  thinks,  represents  Quetzalcoatl,  for  he 
recognizes  the  symbols  of  that  hero,  the  cross  and  the 
robe.  The  tablet  of  the  cross,  No.  2,  at  Palenque,  Dr. 
Brinton  thinks,  represents  Quetzalcoatl,  as  it  contains 
the  bird  on  the  summit  of  the  cross,  and  represents  two 
figures  as  offering  sacrifice  to  the  bird.  With  as  much 
reason  we  may  identify  the  shrine  or  temple  with  the 
three  tablets,  as  the  shrine  of  the  goddess  Centeotl,  the 
wife  of  Tlaloc,  for  there  are  three  figures  en  the  piers 
of  this  temple  which  represent  a  female  with  a  child  in 
the  arms,  which  is  the  emblem  of  this  goddess  among 
the  Nahuas." — Myths  and  Symbols,  pp.  405,  406. 

Itzamna,  the  god  of  the  rising  sun  among  the  Mayas 
at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  was  also  worshiped  by  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  Chiapas  and  Yucatan,  if  we  can 
rely  upon  the  testimony  of  the  monuments.  He  was 
symbolized  by  a  tapir  and  a  human  hand,  and  tapir 
snouts  and  human  hands  are  found  both  in  the  Codices 
and  upon  the  monuments.  In  the  Troano  and  Dresden 
Codices  Itzamna  appears  with  a  snout,  and  with  a  tusk 
protruding  from  each  side  of  his  mouth.  At  Uxmal  he 
is  represented  by  the  so-called  "elephant  trunks,"  which 
have  been  made  the  basis  of  so  many  conjectures  as  to 
the  Asiatic  origin  of  the  builders.  At  Kabah  he  appears 
again  in  an  inscription  holding  a  serpent  in  his  hand. 
And  at  Palenque  he  is  represented  on  various  masks  and 


460  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

statues  by  the  characteristic  tapir  snout,  and  on  certain 
slate  tablets  from  the  same  region  by  the  sacred  tapir 
and  the  human  hand.  These  symbols  prove  beyond 
doubt  that  in  ancient  as  well  as  in  modern  times  Itzamna 
was  worshiped  as  a  god  by  the  Maya  people. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  many  of  the  tribes  of  Amer 
ica  worshiped  the  human  organs  of  generation.  The 
early  missionaries  found  phallic  worship  in  Yucatan, 
Nicaragua,  Honduras,  Tlascala,  Mexico,  Panuco  and 
Peru.  But  the  sculptured  phalli  from  all  these  sections 
prove  conclusively  that  it  was  also  practiced  by  the 
ancient  peoples.  The  evidences  of  this  are  co  clear  that 
Stephens  says:  "The  ornaments  upon  the  external  cor 
nice  of  several  large  buildings" — in  Yucatan — "actually 
consisted  of  membra  conjuncta  in  coitu,  too  plainly 
sculptured  to  be  misunderstood.  And,  if  this  were  not 
sufficient  testimony,  more  was  found  in  the  isolated  and 
scattered  representations  of  the  membrum  verile,  so  ac 
curate  that  even  the  Indians  recognized  the  object,  and 
invited  the  attention  of  Mr.  Catherwood  to  the  originals 
of  some  of  his  drawings  as  yet  unpublished." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  504.  Phalli  have  also  been  discovered 
among  the  antiquities  of  the  Mound  Builders,  the  Peru 
vians  and  at  Copan,  though  not  at  Palenque,  where,  says 
Bancroft,  "there  is  not  among  the  many  tablets  or  deco 
rations  in  stucco  a  single  figure  which  would  be  offen 
sive  to  the  most  prudish  modesty." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
IV.,  p.  358. 

The  evidences  of  ancient  sun-worship  are  also  to  be 
found  among  the  antiquities.  "Sun-worship,"  says  Fos 
ter,  "practiced  by  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Central 
America,  Mexico,  by  the  Natchez  Indians,  and  undoubt 
edly  by  the  Mound  Builders,  can  be  traced  back  to  the 
remotest  antiquity." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  311.  Sun 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


461 


symbols  have  been  found  in  Peru,  at  Copan,  at  Teoti- 
huacan  and  in  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

6.  The  effigy  mounds  of  North  America  strongly  indi 
cate  that  the  Mound  Builders  zvere  animal  worshipers. 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  the  North  American 
Indian  tribes  worshiped  beasts,  birds  and  reptiles  of 
various  kinds,  such  as  the  dog,  coyote,  eagle,  owl  and 
rattlesnake.  The  effigy  mounds  prove  that  the  Mound 
Builders  did  the  same.  The  effigies  are  found  chiefly 
in  Wisconsin  and  adjoining  territory,  though  a  few  are 
found  in  Ohio  and  Georgia.  They  are  in  the  shape  of 
men,  lizards,  serpents,  bears,  birds,  turtles  and  spiders. 
In  Ohio  the  two  most  important  are  the  Great  Serpent 
and  the  Alligator  mound;  in  Wisconsin,  the  Great  Ele 
phant.  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet  says  of  their  evident  purpose: 
"The  effigies  may  have  been  used  as  totems  by  the 
people,  and  thus  show  to  us  the  animal  divinities  which 
were  worshiped  and  the  animal  names  given  to  the 
clans." — The  Mound  Builders,  p.  24. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  it  may  be  said  that  the  sacred 
antiquities  of  the  New  World  prove  conclusively  that 
the  ancient  Americans  were  animal,  idol,  sun  and  phallic 
worshipers,  and  that  they  offered  human  sacrifices.  If 
they  were  Jews  and  Christians,  why  can  not  the  evi 
dences  of  it  be  found? 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


CHAPTER    IX. 

Have  the  Indian  Languages  Been  Derived  from  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Egyptian? — Supposed  Hebrew  Words  in  the  American 
Languages — Comparisons  Between  Indian  Words  and  the 
Words  of  Other  Languages — American  Languages  Not  a 
Wreck,  but  a  Development — The  Structure  of  the  American 
Languages — The  Diversity  of  the  American  Languages — 
Supposed  Book  of  Mormon  Words  in  American  Nomencla 
ture. 

As  the  philologist  looks  out  over  the  broad  field  of 
human  speech  a  number  of  questions  naturally  suggest 
themselves  to  him.  What  is  the  origin  of  these  multi 
farious  forms?  What  is  their  antiquity?  Through  what 
mutations  have  they  passed  ?  What  relation  do  they  bear 
to  one  another?  These  are  questions  that  have  per 
plexed,  and  will  doubtless  always  perplex,  the  student  of 
human  philology. 

Various  theories,  some  of  which  have  been  fully 
refuted  and  given  up,  have  been  advanced  to  account 
for  the  origin  of  human  speech.  The  main  hypotheses 
are  three:  That  human  speech  is  a  direct  and  completed 
gift  from  the  Creator;  that  it  is  wholly  a  human  inven 
tion;  and  that  it  is  an  evolution  from  a  natural  germ. 
According  to  Sleicher,  primordial  language  was  simply 
an  organism  of  vocal  gestures.  Gould  Brown  held  that 
language  is  partly  natural  and  partly  artificial.  Adam 
Smith  and  Dugald  Stewart  advocated  that  human  speech 
is  both  a  human  creation  and  a  human  development  by 
man's  own  artificial  invention.  According  to  Wedge- 
wood  human  language  originated  in  the  efforts  of  man 
to  imitate  the  cries  of  nature,  while  Plato  conceived 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


463 


language  to  be  the  invention  of  the  gods  and  by  them 
given  to  man.1  Is  it  unreasonable  to  believe  that  lan 
guage  is  both  a  gift  and  a  development,  given  by  the 
great  Creator  to  man  in  the  beginning  in  germinal  form 
and  developed  since  by  human  genius  into  the  highly 
inflected  tongues  of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  races? 

The  number  of  languages  throughout  the  world  has 
been  differently  estimated.  According  to  one  estimate 
there  are  3,538,  of  which  987  are  found  in  Asia,  587  in 
Europe,  300  in  Africa,  and  1,664  m  America.2  These 
various  languages,  according  to  certain  structural  pecu 
liarities,  are  grouped  together  in  three  grand  divisions 
or  classes,  the  monosyllabic,  polysynthetic  and  inflec 
tional.  Monosyllabic  languages  are  those  in  which  the 
"roots,  or  sounds  expressive  only  of  the  material  or  sub 
stantial  parts  of  things,  are  used."  Polysynthetic  lan 
guages  are  those  in  which  "a  modifying  termination, 
significant  of  the  relations  of  ideas  or  things  to  each 
other,  is  affixed  or  glued  to  the  root,"  while  inflected 
languages  are  those  in  which  the  parts  of  speech  are 
varied  by  declension  or  conjugation.  The  languages  of 
the  Chinese,  Tibetans  and,  perhaps,  the  Japanese,  belong 
to  the  monosyllabic  group;  those  of  the  Americans  and 
Turanians  to  the  polysynthetic  group,  and  those  of  the 
Aryans  and  Semites  to  the  inflectional  group.3 

But  few  people  are  aware  of  the  exceeding  diversity 
and  richness  of  the  American  tongues.  The  common 
opinion  is  that  if  an  individual  can  speak  "Indian,"  he 
can  converse  with  any  tribe  on  the  continent,  but  this  is 
not  true.  Every  tribe  has  its  own  particular  vocabulary 
and  set  of  grammatical  forms  which  distinguish  its 

1  Bancroft,   III :  6. 

2  Homiletic  Review,  Jan.,   1885,  p.  349. 
8  Bancroft,  111:8,  9. 


464  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

tongue  from  the  tongues  of  the  other  tribes  around  it. 
So  great  is  the  diversity  that  exists  that  some  philolo 
gists  have  despaired  utterly  of  ever  tracing  the  various 
Indian  languages  back  to  a  common  point  of  divergence, 
but  Brinton  mentions  three  characteristics  which  seem 
to  be  a  common  bond  binding  them  together  into  one 
great  linguistic  body  by  themselves,  distinct  from  all  the 
other  languages  of  the  earth.  These  characteristics  are: 
First,  the  prominence  of  pronouns  and  pronominal 
forms,  exceeding  in  this  respect  even  the  Greek,  from 
which  they  are  called  pronominal  languages.  Secondly, 
polysynthesis,  or  the  power  of  running  several  words 
together,  dropping  the  unimportant  parts  and  retaining 
only  those  that  are  significant.  And,  thirdly,  incorpora 
tion,  by  which  the  object  and  manner  of  action  are  in 
cluded  in  the  verb  or  verbal  expression.  These  charac 
teristics,  he  thinks,  constitute  the  American  tongues  a 
distinct  body  by  themselves.1 

At  first  the  American  languages  were  studied  chiefly 
for  two  reasons :  that  certain  political,  trading  and  busi 
ness  interests  might  be  subserved,  and  that  the  tribes 
speaking  them  might  be  made  acquainted  with  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Later  they  were  taken  up  and  studied 
purely  for  scientific  reasons,  and  so  important  have  they 
been  found  as  throwing  light  upon  the  psychology,  rela 
tionship,  antiquity  and  migrations  of  the  American  tribes 
that  they  have  come  to  have  a  strong  influence  in  gov 
erning  the  speculations  of  Americanists.  Among  the 
earlier  students  of  the  American  languages,  who  carried 
on  their  investigations  for  purely  scientific  reasons,  were 
Humboldt,  Duponceau  and  Gallatin.  In  the  writings  of 
these  philologists  we  do  not  find  the  crude  absurdities 

1  "Essays  of  an  Americanist,"  pp.   320,   321. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


465 


that  appear  in  the  pages  of  Adair,  Boudinot  and  Priest, 
the  Mormon  "authorities."  They  came  to  the  American 
tongues,  not  with  a  theory  to  prove,  but  for  the  sake  of 
getting  out  of  them  only  what  they  contained.  Among 
later  students  of  American  philology  none  stand  higher 
than  Major  J.  W.  Powell  and  Dr.  D.  G.  Brinton.  Pow 
ell's  excellent  paper,  "On  the  Evolution  of  Language," 
in  the  "First  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnol 
ogy,"  and  Brinton's  interesting  chapters  on  American 
philology  in  his  "Essays  of  an  Americanist,"  are  the 
sources  from  which  I  have  obtained  my  information  for 
this  chapter  on  the  structure  of  the  American  tongues. 

According  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  civilized  an 
cestors  of  the  American  Indians  spoke  and  wrote  two 
Old  World  languages — the  Hebrew  and  the  Egyptian — 
both  of  which,  in  course  of  time,  became  altered  or 
changed.  The  Egyptian,  in  its  changed  or  altered  form, 
was  called  the  "Reformed  Egyptian."  Moroni  says  of 
these  languages :  "And  now,  behold,  we  have  written  this 
record  [Book  of  Mormon]  according  to  our  knowledge 
in  the  characters,  which  are  called  among  us  the  re 
formed  Egyptian,  being  handed  down  and  altered  by  us, 
according  to  our  manner  of  speech.  And  if  our  plates 
had  been  sufficiently  large,  we  should  have  written  in 
Hebrew ;  but  the  Hebrew  hath  been  altered  by  us  also ; 
and  if  we  could  have  written  in  Hebrew,,  behold,  ye 
would  have  had  no  imperfection  in  our  record." — Mor 
mon  4 :  8.  From  this  Mormon  writers  claim  that  the  In 
dian  languages  are  perversions  of  and  variations  and 
deviations  from  the  Egyptian  and  the  Hebrew,  and  that 
they  still  retain  certain  features  in  their  etymology  and 
syntax  by  which  this  relationship  may  be  proved. 

In  this  chapter  I  expect  to  show  that  the  American 
languages  are  not  only  devoid  of  any  important  resem- 


466  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

blances  to  the  Hebrew  and  the  Egyptian,  but  that,  con 
sidering  their  structure  and  diversity,  it  would  be  an 
impossibility  for  them  to  have  been  derived  from  these 
languages  no  longer  ago  than  600  B.  C. 

SUPPOSED   HEBREW   WORDS  IN   THE   AMERICAN   LANGUAGES. 

To  prove  their  claim  that  the  American  Indians  are 
of  Jewish  descent,  Mormon  writers  quote  the  statements 
of  a  number  of  the  older  authors  relative  to  the  similarity 
of  the  Hebrew  and  American  tongues. 

Priest  says:  "Hebrew  words  are  found  among  the 
American  Indians  in  considerable  variety." — The  Book 
Unsealed,  p.  32. 

Boudinot  says :  "Their  language,  in  its  roots,  idiom 
and  particular  construction,  appears  to  have  the  whole 
genius  of  the  Hebrew ;  and  what  is  very  remarkable,  and 
well  worthy  of  serious  attention,  has  most  of  the  peculi 
arities  of  the  language,  especially  those  in  which  it  differs 
from  most  other  languages." — A  Voice  of  Warning,  p. 
82. 

Adair  says :  "The  Indian  language  and  dialects  appear 
to  have  the  very  idiom  and  genius  of  the  Hebrew.  Their 
words  and  sentences  are  expressive,  concise,  emphatical, 
sonorous  and  bold ;  and  often,  both  in  letters  and  signifi 
cation,  synonymous  with  the  Hebrew  language." — Tal- 
madge's  Tzvo  Lectures,  p.  46. 

And  Mr.  Stebbins  says  that  in  June,  1868,  he  heard 
an  educated  Seneca  lecture  in  Van  Buren  County,  Mich 
igan,  who  said  that  "he  could  refer  his  hearers  to  150 
words  in  the  Seneca  language  which  closely  resembled 
the  Hebrew." — Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,  p.  246. 

These  quotations,  which  also  appear  in  other  Mormon 
works,  are  accepted  by  the  Mormons  as  perfectly  trust 
worthy,  and  are  looked  upon  as  confirmatory  of  their 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


467 


claim.  But  while  Priest  was  probably  a  very  good  har 
ness-maker,  Boudinot  a  very  excellent  gentleman,  Adair 
a  shrewd  Indian  trader,  and  the  educated  Seneca  a  well- 
meaning  man,  none  of  them  were  sufficiently  well  ac 
quainted  with  the  Indian  languages  as  a  body  to  speak 
authoritatively,  and  their  opinions  are  directly  at  variance 
with  those  of  Humboldt,  Duponceau,  Gallatin,  Brinton 
and  Powell,  men  who  have  been  experts  in  American 
philology.  It  might  be  true  that  there  are  150  words  in 
the  Seneca  language  resembling  Hebrew  words,  and  yet 
not  prove  that  that  language  was  derived  from  the  He 
brew.  It  takes  something  more  than  a  few  verbal  resem 
blances  to  prove  lingual  relationship. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  comparisons,  between  sup 
posed  Indian  and  Hebrew  words,  compiled  by  Adair,1 
who  was  a  trader  among  the  Creeks  and  neighboring 
tribes  for  forty  years,  and  presented  by  the  Latter-day 
Saints  as  evidence  of  the  truthfulness  of  their  claim  that 
the  American  Indian  is  a  descendant  of  the  Jew.  These 
comparisons,  with  others,  are  found  in  such  Mormon 
works  as  Phillips'  "Book  of  Mormon  Verified,"  Stebbins' 
"Book  of  Mormon  Lectures,"  and  Etzenhouser's  "Book 
Unsealed,"  the  last  named  being  the  work  from  which  I 
have  taken  this  list. 


English. 

Indian. 

Hebrew  or  Chaldee. 

Jehovah, 

Yohewah,* 

Jahoveh. 

God, 

Ale,* 

Ale,  Aleim. 

Jah, 
Shiloah, 

Yah  or  Wah, 
Shilu, 

Jah. 
Shiloh. 

Heavens, 

Chemim,f 

Shemim. 

Father, 

Abba,* 

Abba. 

Man, 

Ish.t    Ishte,* 

Ish. 

Woman, 

Ishto,f 

Ishto. 

Wife, 

Awah,* 

Ewah,  Eve. 

Thou, 

Keah.J 

Ka. 

His   wife, 

Liani.t 

Lihene. 

This    man, 

Uwoh.t 

Huah. 

Nose, 

Nichiri,t 

Neheri. 

Roof  of  a  house, 

Taubana-ora,t 

Debonaou. 

Winter, 

Kora,* 

Korah, 

"The  Ten  Tribes,"  p.  69. 


468  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


English. 

Indian. 

Hebrew  or  Chaldee. 

Canaan, 

Canaai,* 

Canaan. 

To  pray.* 

Phale,* 

Phalace. 

Now, 

Na,* 

Na. 

Hind  parts, 

Kesh,* 

Kish. 

Do, 

Jennais,* 

Jannon. 

To  blow, 

Phaubac,f 

Phauhe. 

Rushing   wind, 

Rowah, 

Ruach. 

Ararat,    or    high    moun 

Ararat.J 

Ararat. 

tain, 

Assembly, 

Kurbet.t 

Grabit. 

My  skin, 

Nora,t 

Ourni. 

Very    hot, 

Heru  hara  or 

ha1.;.,*          Hara  hara. 

Praise  to  the  first  Cause, 

Hallehuwah,* 

Hallelujah. 

While  this  list  has  been  repeatedly  used  by  the  Mor 
mons,  one  thing  is  very  noticeable :  they  have  always 
been  very  careful  not  to  betray  the  names  of  the  tribes 
from  whose  languages  these  supposed  Hebrew  words  are 
said  to  come.  Can  it  be  that  they  are  fearful  lest  an 
investigation  expose  the  inaccuracy  of  these  compari 
sons?  However,  by  consulting  "The  Ten  Tribes  of 
Israel,"  pp.  73-75,  by  Mr.  Timothy  Jenkins,  I  find  that 
those  words  marked  with  a  *  are  said  to  be  Creek,  those 
marked  with  a  t  are  said  to  be  Caribbee,  and  those 
marked  with  a  t  are  said  to  belong  to  the  languages  of 
the  Mohegans  and  kindred  tribes. 

That  there  may  be  a  slight  similarity  between  some  of 
the  words  in  the  Hebrew  and  Indian  languages  I  do  not 
deny,  but  these  similarities,  if  they  exist,  are  so  insignifi 
cant  that  they  must  be  considered  purely  accidental  and 
can  have  no  weight  whatever  in  determining  the  origin 
of  the  American  Indian,  especially  when  the  structure  of 
his  languages  is  so  very  different  from  the  structure  of 
the  Hebrew.  Theorists  have  too  often  yielded  to  the 
temptation,  in  finding  an  Indian  word  identical,  or  nearly 
so,  with  a  Hebrew  word  in  meaning,  and  more  or  less 
closely  resembling  it  in  sound,  to  add  a  sound  or  omit  a 
syllable  in  order  to  make  the  resemblance  closer.  This 


t.  EUenhouser  has  "to  pay,"  but  this  is  incorrect. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


469 


very  thing  has  been  done  in  the  case  of  many  of  the 
above-given  comparisons,  as  I  shall  show.  Says  George 
Bancroft:  "The  ingenious  scholar  may  find  analogies  in 
language,  customs,  institutions  and  religions  between  the 
aborigines  of  America  and  any  nation  whatever  of  the 
Old  World;  the  pious  curiosity  of  Christendom,  and  not 
a  peculiar  coincidence,  has  created  a  special  disposition 
to  discover  a  connection  between  them  and  the  Hebrews." 
— History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  211,  212. 

Where  Adair,  Boudinot  and  Priest  could  find  a  great 
many  words  among  a  few  tribes  resembling  the  words  of 
only  one  Old  World  language,  the  Hebrew,  Squier,  a 
man  without  a  theory  to  prove  and  a  careful  investigator, 
asserts  that  in  all  the  tongues  of  North  and  South  Amer 
ica  he  could  find  only  187  common  to  foreign  languages. 
Out  of  this  number  104  occur  in  the  languages  of  Asia 
and  Australia,  forty-three  in  those  of  Europe,  and  forty 
in  those  of  Africa.1 

I  now  invite  the  reader's  attention  to  the  Hebrew  or 
Chaldee  words  in  Mr.  Etzenhouser's  list  of  comparisons. 
While  some  of  them  are  undoubtedly  correct,  in  others 
the  spelling  does  not  exactly  represent  the  sound  of  the 
real  Hebrew  words,  while  still  others  I  fail  to  find  at  all. 

English. 

Jehovah, 

God, 

Shiloh, 

Heavens, 

Father, 

Man, 

Woman, 

Wife, 

Thou, 

His   wife, 

1  "Types  of  Mankind,"  p.  281. 

2  For    assistance    in    compiling    these    Hebrew    and    Chaldee    lists    I    am 
greatly  indebted  to  my  friend,  Rev.  J.  S.  Howk,  D.D.,  of  Jeffersonville,  Ind. 


Hebrew 

Hebrew. 

Chaldee.9 

(Etzenhouser). 

Jahoveh, 

Jehovah    or    Jahu, 

Jahveh. 

Ale,    Aleim, 

El,   Elohim, 

Elah. 

Shiloh, 

Shiloh, 

Shelam. 

Shemim, 

Shamayim, 

Shemayin. 

Abba, 

Ab, 

Abba. 

Ish, 

Ish, 

Enash. 

Ishto, 

Ishshah, 

Ittah. 

Ewah,    Eve, 

Ishshah, 

Shegal. 

Ka, 

Att,      attah,      (ka 

Ant. 

mas.     gend.    suf 

fix    only), 

Lihene, 

Ishto, 

Sheglohi. 

CUMORAH  REVISITED 


English. 

Hebrew. 

Hebrew. 

Chaldee. 

This  man, 

Huah, 

Haish     hazeh,     ha 

Haden. 

hu. 

Nose, 

Neheri, 

Aph,    nechirim, 

Anpin. 

Roof, 

Debonaou(r), 

Gag, 

Gaggah. 

Winter, 
Canaan, 

Korah, 
Canaan, 

Choreph, 
Canaan, 

Chereph. 
Canaan. 

To   pray, 

Phalac(e), 

Palal, 

Beah. 

Now, 

Na, 

Na, 

Kean. 

Hind   parts, 

Kish, 

Achor, 

Achorah. 

Do, 

Jannon, 

Abad,    asah, 

Abad. 

To  blow, 

Phauhe, 

Puach, 

Guach. 

Rushing    wind, 

Ruach, 

Ruach, 

Ruach. 

Assembly, 

Grabit, 

Moed,    miqra, 

Kenashah. 

My    skin, 

Ourni, 

Ori, 

Gildi. 

Very   hot, 

Hara  hara, 

Charah, 

Azah. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  words 
in  the  third  and  fourth  columns  are  the  only  equivalents 
of  the  English  words  given,  but  that  they  come  the  near 
est  to  the  Hebrew-Chaldee  terms  given  by  Mr.  Etzen- 
houser,  or  are  the  ones  which  more  frequently  occur  and 
were  more  commonly  used. 

In  Mr.  Etzenhouser's  list  the  words  Shiloh,  abba,  ish, 
ka,  Canaan,  na  and  ruach  are  spelled  correctly;  ale  cor 
rectly  represents  the  sounds  of  el;  while  Jahoveh,  in  the 
vowels  of  its  first  and  last  syllables,  differs  from  Jehovah. 
Of  the  rest,  liken e,  debonaou,  kish,  jannon  and  grabit  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find;  while  Aleim  is  evidently  a 
corruption  of  Elohim,  shemim  of  shamayim,  ishto  of 
ishshah,  huah  of  ha  hu  (from  ha,  the  article,  and  hu,  the 
personal  pronoun),  neheri  of  nechirim,  korah  of  choreph, 
phalace  of  palal,  phauhe  of  puach,  ourni  of  ori  and  hara 
hara  of  char ah. 

As  much  liberty  has  been  taken  with  the  Indian 
words.  According  to  Jenkins,  Yohewah,  ale,  abba,  ishte, 
awah,  kora,  Canaai,  phalc,  na,  kesh,  jennais,  heru  hara 
or  hold  and  halleluwah  are  Creek;  the  rest  are  either 
Caribbee  or  Mohegan  words  or  words  from  the  lan 
guages  of  northern  tribes.  As  I  have  not  been  able  to 
obtain  a  grammar  or  definer  of  either  the  Caribbee  or 
Mohegan  tongues,  the  words  from  these  languages  will 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  471 

be  passed  unnoticed,  except  those  for  "man,"  "woman" 
and  "nose,"  which,  fortunately,  I  have  found  in  a  Carib- 
bee  vocabulary  in  Brinton's  "The  American  Race,"  pp. 

351,  352- 

I  have  been,  however,  more   fortunate  in  obtaining 

vocabularies  of  the  Creek,  furnished  by  Mr.  Charles 
Gibson,  of  Eufaula;  Mr.  Jeff  D.  Ward,  of  Atoka,  and 
Mrs.  A.  E.  W.  Robertson,  of  Muskogee,  Indian  Terri 
tory.  Mr.  Ward  also  kindly  obtained  for  me  vocabu 
laries  of  both  the  Choctaw  and  the  Cherokee. 

Having  seen  the  name  of  Mr.  Charles  Gibson,  the 
Creek  fable  writer,  in  a  magazine,  I  wrote  to  him  the 
following  letter,  which  explains  itself: 

BUCHANAN,  Michigan,  Aug.  6,  1903. 
MR.  CHARLES  GIBSON,  Eufaula,  Indian  Territory. 

Dear  Sir — Will  you  kindly  give  me  information  in  regard  to 
the  following?  I  have  a  work  entitled  "The  Ten  Tribes  of 
Israel,"  in  which  a  comparison  is  made  between  certain  words 
in  the  Hebrew  and  Indian  tongues,  some  of  them  said  to  be 
Creek,  as  follows: 

English.  Creek.  Hebrew. 

God,  Ale,  Ale. 

Father,  Abba,  Abba. 

Wife,  Awah,  Eve,    Eweh. 

Winter,  Kora,  Cora. 

Very  hot,  Heru,  hara  or  hala,            Kara  hara. 

Now,  Na,  Na. 

Hind   parts,  Kesh,  Kish. 

To  pray,  Phale,  Phalac. 

Man  or  chief,  Ishte,  Ish. 

Will  you  kindly  inform  me  if  these  comparisons  are  correct? 
If  they  are  not,  will  you  give  me  the  correct  Creek  word  for 
each?  Thanking  you  for  your  courtesy  and  hoping  to  hear 
from  you,  I  am,  Yours  truly,  CHARLES  A.  SHOOK. 

Mr.  Gibson  is  perhaps  as  good  an  authority  on  his 
language  as  can  be  found  in  the  Indian  Territory.  Of 
him  the  Twin  Territories  for  July,  1903,  says :  "Nearly 
every  one  who  knows  anything  of  Indian  Territory,  or 
the  Creek  tribe  of  Indians,  has  heard  of  Charles  Gibson. 


472  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

His  fables,  published  at  sometime  or  other  in  nearly  every 
paper  of  Oklahoma  or  Indian  Territory,  together  with 
'Gibson's  Rifle  Shots,'  have  made  for  him  a  name  that 
could  scarcely  be  obtained  by  any  other  achievement." 
To  my  letter  Mr.  Gibson  sent  the  following  reply : 

EUFAULA,  Indian  Territory,  Aug.  9,  1903. 
MR.  CHARLES  A.  SHOOK,  Buchanan,  Michigan. 

Dear  Sir — Yours  of  the  6th  inst.  to  hand,  and  I  will  answer 
your  letter,  etc.,  etc.,  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  First,  the  defini-^ 
tions  to  list  of  words  in  your  list. 

English.  Creek. 

God,  Hi-sak-ita-missee. 

Father,  Chuth-kee. 

Wife,  Chi-hi-wa. 

Winter,  Thlof-foo. 

Very  hot,  Hi-ye-ta. 

Now,  Hi-yome. 

Hind  parts,  Sook-so. 

To  pray,  Eme-ko-sar-pi-ta. 

Man,  Ho-non-wa. 

Chief,  Micco. 

Now,  it  is  almost  an  impossibility  to  pronounce  these  words 
right  by  the  way  they  are  spelled  by  the  English  letters.  They 
use  the  English  alphabet,  but  have  sounds  that  are  not  English — 
say  the  letter  C  is  sounded  chee,  R  is  hie,  V  is  ah,  W  is  we,  etc., 
etc.  Therefore  it  is  a  hard  matter  to  sound  Creek  words  with 
the  English  letters,  but  you  can  see  by  the  names  or  the  inter 
pretations  of  the  words  I  send  you  that  they  are  very  different 
from  yours.  This  is  the  Creek,  but  understand  the  Choctaw, 
Chickasaw  and  Cherokee  languages  are  very  different  from  my 
language;  but  there  is  very  little  resemblance  in  the  others,  as  I 
understand  a  few  words  of  these  other  tribes.  Now,  the  Choc- 
taw,  when  he  mentions  God,  says  Abba  Pinky;  when  he  speaks 
of  a  certain  part  of  the  hind  parts  of  anything,  he  says  Iskish. 
These  are  as  near  as  I  can  come  to  your  words.  .  .  . 

Yours,  CHAS.  GIBSON. 

The  reader  can  readily  see  that  the  Creek  words  as 
given  by  Mr.  Gibson  are  very  different  from  those  said 
to  be  Creek  which  I  sent  to  him,  and  which  appear  in 
Mormon  works.  To  verify  these  comparisons  I  obtained, 
through  Mr.  Jeff  D.  Ward,  another  list  of  the  Creek  and 


CUMORAH    REVISITED 


473 


also  lists  of  the  Cherokee  and  Choctaw.  I  have  reasoned 
that,  as  Adair  was  a  trader  among  all  these  tribes  for 
forty  years,  some  of  these  words  said  to  be  Creek,  but 
which  are  not  Creek,  may  be  corruptions  from  these  other 
tongues.  Mr.  Ward's  Cherokee  and  Choctaw  lists  prove 
that  in  at  least  two  instances  my  reasoning  has  been  cor 
rect.  His  comparisons  are  as  follows : 


English. 

Creek. 

Cherokee. 

Choctaw. 

God, 

Hesaketamesee, 

Oo-neh-lah-ner-he, 

Che-ho-wa. 

Father, 

Chuthke, 

Eh-dor-der, 

Ank-ki. 

Wife, 

Hiwa, 

Oo-dah-lee       (  hi  s 

Tek-chi. 

wife), 

Winter, 

Thluffo, 

Goh-ler, 

On-na-fa. 

Very    hot, 

Hiyehethle, 

Oo-de-leh-ger, 

Lash-pa  feh-na. 

Now, 

Mucher, 

Nah-qwoo, 

Him-ak. 

Hind    parts, 

Yupa   futcher, 

Oh-ne-de-dler, 

Ha-pul-lo. 

To  pray, 

Emekosupeta, 

E-dar-dar-dor-le- 

Im-mil-bush-sha. 

ster, 

Man, 

Honunwa, 

Ah-skar-yah, 

Hat-tak. 

Chief, 

Mikko, 

Oo-ger-we-yu-he, 

Min-ko. 

The  Creek  words  in  this  list  agree  very  well  with 
those  furnished  by  Mr.  Gibson.  The  words  for  "God," 
"father,"  "winter,"  "to  pray,"  "man"  and  "chief"  are 
practically  the  same.  The  word  for  "wife,"  as  given  by 
Mr.  Ward,  is  hiwa;  as  given  by  Mr.  Gibson  it  is  chihiwa, 
which  according  to  Mrs.  Robertson  means  "your  wife." 
Mrs.  Robertson  also  informs  me  that  hiyeta  and  hiye- 
hethle  "express  the  same  meaning."  According  to  her 
list,  hiyome,  or  hiyomat,  and  mucker,  or  mucu,  are  both 
equivalents  of  the  English  word  "now."  "Suksu,"  she 
says,  "is  given  as  'the  hip'  in  Loughridge's  lexicon.  Yupu 
means  behind,  and  fuccu  towards." 

It  seems  certain  that  some  of  the  words  in  the  Mor 
mon  list,  said  to  be  Creek,  are  not  Creek  at  all;  others 
are  corruptions  of  real  Creek  words;  and  still  others  are 
introductions  from  the  English  tongue.  Ale  is  not  the 
Creek  word  for  "God,"  which  is  Isakita  immissi,  as  given 
by  Gatschet,1  or  Esaugetuh  Emissee,  as  given  by  Brin- 

"Migration  Legend  of  the  Creeks,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  215. 


474 


CUMORAH  REVISITED     • 


ton,1  which  is  the  same  word  with  a  broader  pronuncia 
tion.  Both  Messrs.  Ward  and  Gibson  spell  it  differently. 
The  Cherokee  word  also  has  no  resemblance  to  ale; 
neither  have  the  two  Choctaw  words  for  "God,"  Chito- 
kaka  and  Chihowa.  The  word  for  "father,"  abba,  does 
not  occur  in  any  of  these  tongues,  but  Gibson  says  that 
the  Choctaw  title  for  divinity  is  abba  pinky.  I  have  care' 
fully  looked  Watkins'  "Complete  Choctaw  Definer" 
through  and  fail  to  find  it,  but  Brinton  gives  the  Choctaw 
title  for  divinity  yuba  paik,  which,  he  says,  means,  "Our 
Father  Above."  2  By  consulting  the  "Definer,"  I  find  that 
this  title  is  from  uba  (pronounced  with  a  short  u), 
"above,"  and  piki,  "Our  Father."  It  is  altogether  prob 
able  that  Adair's  awah  comes  from  hiwa.  Neither  the 
Creek  nor  the  Choctaw  words  for  "winter"  sound  like 
kora,  but  the  Cherokee  word,  gohler,  slightly  resembles 
it  in  sound,  and  Jenkins  says  that  "korah  is  their  word 
for  winter  with  the  Cherokee  Indians,  as  it  is  with  the 
Hebrews." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  119.  The  words  heru, 
hara  or  hala  have  evidently  been  derived  from  hiyehethle, 
for  Mrs.  Robertson  says  that  here,  pronounced  hehle, 
"after  a  word  adds  the  force  of  very."  The  word  na, 
said  to  be  Creek,  is  probably  the  first  syllable  of  the 
Cherokee  nahqwoo,  or  naquo,  as  Mrs.  Robertson  spells 
it.  Gibson  says  that  the  Choctaw  word  for  "hind  parts" 
is  iskish;  Watkins  gives  ishkish  as  the  Choctaw  equiva 
lent  of  our  word  "rump."  Kish,  ir  Hebrew,  means  "bow 
or  power;"  achor  is  the  correct  word  for  "hind  parts." 
The  words  for  "to  pray"  bear  no  resemblance  to  phale. 
Jenkins  gives  ishte  as  the  Creek  word  for  "man"  or 
"chief;"  this  is,  without  doubt,  from  isti,3  which  is  a 

1  "Myths,"   p.   67. 

2  "Myths,"    p.    65,    Footnote. 

3  "Migration  Legend,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  203. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


475 


generic  term  meaning  person,  into  which  the  sound  of 
h  has  been  inserted  to  make  it  more  closely  resemble  the 
Hebrew  word  ish.  Isti  means  a  person,  man,  woman  or 
child ;  ish  means  a  male.  Latter-day  Saints  tell  us  fur 
ther  that  the  Indians  were  in  the  habit  of  using  the  sacred 
ejaculation,  "Hallelujah,"  and  Jenkins  says:  "In  the 
Choctaw  nation  they  often  sing  'Halleluyah,'  intermixed 
with  their  lamentations." — The  Ten  Tribes,  p.  132.  Else 
where  (p.  144)  he  informs  us  that  both  the  Choctaw  and 
Cherokee  tribes  use  the  word.  The  Creeks  had  a  sacred 
chant,  hi-yo-yu  or  hay-ay-al-gi.1  The  Cherokees  em 
ployed  the  sacred,  but  meaningless,  chant,  ha-wi-ye-e-hi, 
in  their  "Groundhog  Dance;"  he-el  hay-u-ya  han-iwa, 
etc.,  was  employed  by  their  bear-hunters  to  attract  the 
bear;  while  ha-wi-ye-hy-u-we  was  a  part  of  one  of  their 
baby  songs.2  Hayuya  falling  on  the  ears  of  an  English 
man  might  be  mistaken  for  "hallelujah."  Lastly,  the 
words  for  "Jehovah"  (Yohewah  in  the  Cherokee,  Che- 
hozva  in  the  Choctaw,  and  Chihufa  in  the  Creek)  are  not 
original  words  at  all,  and  the  same  may  be  said  for 
Shiloh,  Canaan  and  other  Old  Testament  names,  but  are 
simply  the  efforts  of  these  tribes  to  pronounce  our  Scrip 
tural  terms.  In  reply  to  my  request  that  she  give  me  her 
opinion  on  the  origin  of  these  Indian  equivalents  of 
"Jehovah,"  Mrs.  Robertson,  under  date  of  June  24,  1904, 
writes:  "I  have  not  the  least  idea  that  Y ehowa  is  any 
thing  else  than  our  English  word  adapted  to  the  Chero 
kee  sounds,  just  as  are  the  Creek  and  Choctaw,  for  I 
think  the  Choctaw  Chehowa  was  derived  in  the  same 
way."  This  is  proved  further  by  the  fact  that  the  word 
"Jehovah"  is  a  title  of  modern  invention,  dating  no  fur 
ther  back  than  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  con- 

1  "Myths,"   p.   95,    Footnote. 

2  "Nineteenth  Rept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  pp.  279,  401. 


476  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

sonantal  writing  of  the  Hebrews  the  word  stands  J-h-v-h, 
into  which  a  scholar  proposed  inserting  the  vowels  e,  o 
and  a  from  edonai,  the  word  for  "Lord."  Aramaic 
papyri,  discovered  near  Assuan  in  Egypt  a  few  years  ago 
and  dating  from  the  fifth  century  B.  C,  gives  the  name 
of  the  Hebrew  God  as  "Jahu,"  and,  as  this  is  the  name 
found  in  certain  Babylonian  business  documents  of  that 
period,  it  is  probable  that  it  is  the  ancient  name  in  place 
of  "Jehovah."  This  makes  it  positively  impossible  for 
Yohewah,  Chihowa  and  Chihufa  to  be  original  Indian 
words  derived  from  the  Hebrew,  for  "Jehovah"  itself 
is  now  only  about  three  centuries  old.1  The  Creek 
word  for  panther  or  catamount  is  katsa;2  why  not  argue 
their  German  origin  because  it  so  very  closely  resembles 
the  German  word  for  cat,  katze,  both  in  sound  and 
signification  ? 

A  number  of  the  supposed  Indian  words  in  Mr.  Etzen- 
houser's  list  are  declared  by  Jenkins  to  come  from  the 
Caribbee  or  Carib  language.  These  are  chemim,  ish, 
ishto,  Hani,  nichiri,  taubana-ora,  phaubac,  kurbet  and 
nora,  the  words  for  "heavens,"  "man,"  "woman,"  "his 
wife,"  "nose,"  "roof,"  "to  blow,"  "assembly"  and  "my 
skin."  As  I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  a  Caribbee 
definer,  all  of  these  words  will  have  to  be  passed  un 
noticed  with  the  exception  of  three.  In  Brinton's  "The 
American  Race,"  pp.  351,  354,  I  have  found  the  original 
words  for  "man,"  "woman"  and  "nose"  in  eight  of  the 
Carib  dialects.  These  dialects  are:  Bakairi,  Motilone, 
Gauque,  Tamanaca,  Roucouyenne,  Macuchi,  Maquiritare 
and  Cumanagoto.  Of  these  dialects  the  Bakairi  has  the 
best  claims  to  antiquity.  Brinton  remarks :  "The  oldest 
existing  forms  of  the  Carib  stock  are  believed  by  Von 


1  See  "Fresh  Lights  from  the  Ancient  Monuments,"  p.  62. 

2  "Migration    Legend,"   Vol.    I.,   p.    155. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


477 


den  Steinen  to  be  preserved  in  the  Bakairi,  which  I  have 
accordingly  placed  first  in  the  vocabularies  of  this  fam 
ily."  This  being  true,  if  Hebrew  words  are  found  in  the 
Carib  language  at  all,  we  shall  be  more  likely  to  find  them 
in  this  dialect,  but  here  we  look  in  vain.  The  Carib  words 
for  "man  "  "woman"  and  "nose"  are : 


Bakairi, 

Motilone, 

Guaque, 

Tamanaca, 

Man, 

uguruto, 

yakano, 

guire, 

nuani, 

Woman, 

pekoto, 

esate, 

guerechi, 

aica, 

Nose, 

kchandal. 

ona, 

onari, 

Roucouyenne, 

Macuchi, 

Maquiritare, 

Cumanagoto. 

Man, 

okiri, 

uratae, 

rahuwari, 

guarayto. 

Woman, 

oli, 

nery. 

wiri, 

guariche. 

Nose, 

yemna, 

yuna, 

yonari, 

ona. 

Of  the  words  for  "man,"  not  one  bears  the  faintest 
similarity  in  sound  to  ish;  esate,  to  one  desperately  deter 
mined  to  prove  his  theory,  might  suggest  ishto;  while 
nichiri  is  undoubtedly  a  corruption  of  onari  or  yonari. 

Thus,  as  the  reader  can  see,  by  a  system  of  inexcusable 
orthographical  jugglery,  Adair  and  his  followers  have 
made  a  number  of  comparisons  which,  under  close  in 
vestigation,  are  shown  to  be  erroneous,  but  which  are 
confidently  held  up  by  the  Mormons  as  proof  of  their 
claim  that  the  American  Indians  are  descendants  of  the 
Jews. 

COMPARISONS  BETWEEN  INDIAN  WORDS  AND  THE  WORDS  OF 
OTHER  LANGUAGES. 

But  even  if  it  were  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  certain 
words  in  the  Indian  languages  agree  with  certain  Hebrew 
words  both  in  sound  and  meaning,  it  would  no  more 
prove  their  Hebrew  origin  than  the  Chinese,  Assyrian 
and  Welsh  words  prove  their  descent  from  the  languages 
of  the  Chinese,  Assyrians  and  Welsh. 

Dr.  Le  Plongeon  is  reported  as  saying:  "The  Maya 
language  seems  to  be  one  of  the  oldest  tongues  spoken  by 
man,  since  it  contains  words  and  expressions  of  all,  or 


478  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

nearly  all,  of  the  known  polished  languages  of  the  earth." 
— Ruins  Revisited,  pp.  177,  178. 

The  reader  should  remember  that  the  slight  resem 
blances  which  exist  are  not  claimed  by  philologists  to  be 
the  result  of  ethnical  descent,  but  rather  are  looked  upon 
as 'purely  accidental.  This  is  the  opinion  of  most  of  those 
who  have  made  the  American  languages  a  special  study. 

On  the  similarity  between  the  Maya  and  the  Greek, 
Le  Plongeon  says:  "One-third  of  the  tongue  is  pure 
Greek."  There  is  also  a  marked  similarity  between  the 
names  of  five  cities  in  Asia  Minor,  of  140  A.  D.,  and  a 
corresponding  number  in  Central  America. 

Armenian  Cities.  Central   American    Localities. 
Choi,  Chol-ula. 

Colua,  Colua-can. 

Zuivana,  Zuiyan. 

Cholima,  Colima. 

Zalissa,  Xalisco. 

— Atlantis,  p.  178. 

• 

Analogies  between  the  American  and  Chinese  lan 
guages  are  numerous.  "Analogies  have  been  found,  or 
thought  to  exist,  between  the  languages  of  several  of  the 
American  tribes  and  that  of  the  Chinese.  .  .  .  The  simi 
larity  between  the  Otomi  and  the  Chinese  has  been  re 
marked  by  several  writers." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p. 

39- 

In  1857  Henley,  a  Chinese  scholar,  "published  a  list 
of  words  in  the  Chinese  and  Indian  languages  to  show 
that  they  were  of  the  same  origin."  Here  is  the  list: 

Indian.  Chinese.  English. 

Nanga,  Nang,  Man. 

Yisoo,  Soa,  Hand. 

Keoka,  Keok,  Foot. 

Aekasoo,  Soo,  Beard. 

Yueta,  Yuet,  Moon. 

Yeeta,  Yat,  Sun. 

Utyta,  Hoto,  Much. 

Leelum,  Eelung,  Deafness. 

Hoyapa,  Hoah,  Good. 

Apa,  Apa,  Father. 

Ama,  Ama,  Mother. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


479 


Indian. 

Kole, 

Kochae, 

Nagam, 

Koolae, 

Koochue, 

Chookoo, 


Chinese. 

Ako, 

Tochae, 

Yam, 

Kukay, 

Chuekoo, 

Kowchi, 


English. 

Brother. 

Thanks. 

Drunk. 

Her. 

Hog. 

Dog. 


— North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  203. 

In  "Atlantis,"  p.  435,  Donnelly  also  gives  a  list  of 
comparisons  between  the  Otomi  and  the  Chinese,  many 
of  which  are  as  striking  as  any  found  in  the  Hebrew- 
Indian  lists  of  Adair,  Boudinot  and  the  Latter-day  Saints. 

Says  Bancroft :  "Bossu  found  some  similarity  between 
the  language  of  the  Natchez  of  Louisiana  and  the  Chi 
nese." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  39. 

He  says  of  Warden:  "The  last-mentioned  author  also 
quotes  a  long  list  of  analogies  between  the  written  lan 
guage  of  the  Chinese  and  the  gesture  language  of  the 
northern  Indians." — Ibid. 

He  quotes  Taylor :  "The  Chinese  accent  can  be  traced 
throughout  the  Indian  (Digger)  language." 

Bradford  says :  "It  is  perhaps  somewhat  more  than 
an  accidental  coincidence  that  the  Mexican  particle  tzint 
which  was  usually  added  to  the  names  of  their  kings,  is 
identical  with  the  Chinese  tsin,  and  the  Indo-Chinese 
asyang,  an  affix  signifying  Lord." — American  Antiqui 
ties,  p.  311. 

I  am  satisfied  that  more  words  can  be  found  in  our 
American  tongues  approaching  Chinese  words  in  both 
sound  and  meaning  than  can  be  found  approaching  the 
Hebrew,  yet  it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  to  use 
this  item  of  evidence  as  proof  of  their  Mongolian  origin. 

Analogies  are  said  to  exist  between  the  Welsh  and  the 
dialects  of  certain  tribes.  Bancroft  gives  the  following 
incident:  "A  certain  Lieutenant  Roberts  states  that  in 
1801  he  met  an  Indian  chief  at  Washington  who  spoke 


48o  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Welsh  'as  fluently  as  if  he  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
in  the  vicinity  of  Snowdon.'  He  said  it  was  the  language 
of  his  nation,  the  Asguaws,  who  lived  eight  hundred 
miles  northwest  of  Philadelphia." — Native  Races,  Vol. 
V.,  pp.  119,  120. 

Following  this,  he  mentions  another  instance  where 
Welshmen  freely  conversed  with  the  natives  in  Welsh. 
"Another  officer,  one  Captain  Davies,  relates  that  while 
stationed  at  a  trading-post,  among  the  Illinois  Indians,  he 
was  surprised  to  find  that  several  Welshmen  who  be 
longed  to  his  company  could  converse  readily  with  the 
aborigines  in  Welsh." — Ibid,  p.  120. 

Donnelly  gives  several  comparisons  between  words  of 
the  Mandan  and  Welsh  languages : 

Welsh. 
Mi. 
Chwi. 
A. 
E. 

Hwynt. 
Ni. 

Hona   (fern.). 
Nagoes. 
Na 
Pen. 
Mawr   Pensethir. 

On  Scandinavian  traces  Bancroft  says:  "Brasseur  de 
Bourbourg  has  found  many  words  in  the  languages  of 
Central  America  which  bear,  he  thinks,  marked  Scandi 
navian  traces ;  little'  can  be  proven  by  this,  however,  since 
he  finds  as  many  other  words  that  as  strongly  resemble 
Latin,  Greek,  English,  French,  and  many  other  lan 
guages." — Native  Races,  Vol.  V.,  p.  115. 

But,  what  is  more  surprising  still,  our  modern  Eng 
lish  bears  a  similarity  to  the  Maya  in  some  few  of  its 
words.  Dellenbaugh  says:  "Brinton  has  shown  that  a 
number  of  Maya  words  resemble  our  English  words  of 
the  same  meanings,  as  bateel  and  battle,  hoi  and  hole, 
hun  and  one,  lum  and  loam,  pol  and  poll  (head),  potum 


English. 

Mandan. 

L 

Me, 

You, 

Ne, 

He, 

E, 

She, 

Ea, 

It, 

Ount, 

We, 

Noo, 

They, 
No    (or    there    is    not), 

Eonah, 
Megosh, 

No, 

Head, 

Pan, 

The   Great   Spirit, 

Maho  Peneta, 

CUMORAH   REVISITED 


481 


and  pot,  pul  and  pull,  and  so  on;  but  nobody  has  yet 
ventured  to  deduce  from  this  that  the  Mayas  are  first 
cousins  of  the  English." — North  Americans  of  Yester 
day,  pp.  25,  26. 

I  might  carry  these  comparisons  out  to  greater  length, 
but  I  believe  that  these  are  sufficient  to  show  the  absurd 
ity  of  trying  to  link  the  American  Indians  to  the  Jews  by 
the  words  that  they  utter.  The  words  that  are  alike  in 
both  languages  are  exceedingly  few,  on  account  of  which 
they  must  be  considered  purely  accidental.  If  this  argu 
ment  proves  anything,  it  proves  that  the  American  In 
dians  are  descendants  of  about  every  nation  under  the 
face  of  the  sun. 

Dellenbaugh  says:  ''Because  of  certain  similarities  of 
physique,  of  words,  or  of  myths,  or  of  customs,  however 
slight,  the  Amerinds  have  been  identified  with  almost 
every  people  under  the  sun.  These  similarities  are  only 
such  as  might  occur  where  similar  organisms  are  con 
tinuously  subjected  to  similar  conditions,  and  the  really 
remarkable  fact  is  that  there  are  not  more  and  even 
closer  resemblances." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday, 
P-  25. 

And  Foster  says :  "As  the  human  voice  articulates  not 
more  than  twenty  distinct  sounds,  whatever  resemblances 
there  may  be  in  the  particular  words  of  different  lan 
guages  are  of  no  ethnic  value,  but  it  is  upon  this  test 
that  many  American  writers  have  undertaken  to  trace  the 
origin  of  the  red  man." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  319. 

THE  AMERICAN  LANGUAGES  NOT  A  WRECK,  BUT  A 
DEVELOPMENT. 

It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  in  point  of  structure  the 
American  tongues  are  inferior  to  the  Hebrew,  so  if  they 
have  come  from  that  language  it  must  have  been  by  a 


482  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

process  of  degeneration  and  not  development.  But  the 
American  tongues  are  not  wrecks;  they  are  primitive 
forms  that  have  passed  through  various  changes  and 
stages  of  development  without  succeeding  in  disenthrall 
ing  themselves  from  nature. 

Foster  says:  "The  language  of  the  American  Indian 
throws  no  light  upon  his  origin,  except  that  that  origin 
was  so  far  remote  that  all  attempts,  by  this  clue,  to  estab 
lish  a  common  center  of  human  creation  are  utterly 
futile." — Prehistoric  Races,  p.  318. 

George  Bancroft  says :  "It  has  been  asked  if  our  In 
dians  were  not  the  wrecks  of  more  civilized  nations. 
Their  language  refutes  the  hypothesis;  every  one  of  its 
forms  is  a  witness  that  their  ancestors  were,  like  them 
selves,  not  yet  disenthralled  from  nature." — History  of 
the  United  States,  Vol.  III.,  p.  265. 

Gallatin  says  that  "they  bear  the  impress  of  primitive 
languages,  and  assumed  their  form  from  natural  causes, 
and  afford  no  proof  of  their  being  derived  from  a  nation 
in  a  more  advanced  state  of  civilization,  and  that  they 
attest  the  antiquity  of  the  population — an  antiquity  the 
earliest  we  are  permitted  to  assume." — Prehistoric  Races, 
p.  321. 

Hayden  says:  "No  theories  of  derivation  from  the 
Old  World  have  stood  the  test  of  grammatical  construc 
tion.  All  traces  of  the  fugitive  tribes  of  Israel,  supposed 
to  be  found  here,  are  again  lost." — Ibid,  p.  319. 

And  Dellenbaugh  says:  "Furthermore,  no  authentic 
trace  of  any  Old  World  language  thus  far  has  been  found 
on  this  continent,  and  the  only  Asiatic  language  now 
known  to  be  allied  to  an  American  is  that  of  a  branch  of 
the  Eskimo  family  which  crossed  from  this  side  within 
the  last  three  hundred  years." — North  Americans  of  Yes 
terday,  pp.  428,  429. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


483 


These  declarations  place  the  theory  that  the  American 
languages  are  wrecks  of  the  Hebrew  and  the  Egyptian  in 
no  very  good  light. 

THE   STRUCTURE  OF  THE   AMERICAN    LANGUAGES. 

The  languages  of  America  possess  certain  structural 
peculiarities  which  distinguish  them  from  the  languages 
of  all  the  rest  of  the  earth.  Bancroft  writes:  "The  re 
searches  of  the  few  philologists  who  have  given  Ameri 
can  languages  their  study  have  brought  to  light  the  fol 
lowing  facts.  First,  that  a  relationship  exists  among  all 
the  tongues  of  the  northern  and  southern  continents ;  and 
that  while  certain  characteristics  are  found  in  common 
throughout  all  the  languages  of  America,  these  languages 
are  as  a  whole  sufficiently  peculiar  to  be  distinguishable 
from  the  speech  of  all  the  other  races  of  the  world." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  III.,  p.  553. 

Chief  among  these  peculiarities  is  the  power  to  ex 
press  an  entire  thought  in  a  word  of  sometimes  fifteen  or 
twenty  syllables,  known  as  a  "bunch  word,"  the  principle 
of  which  is  called  polysyhthesis,  agglutination  or  incor 
poration.  Peter  Stephen  Duponceau,  who  was  among 
the  first  to  remark  upon  this  pecuUarity,  defines  polysyn- 
thesis  in  the  following  words :  "A  polysynthetic  or  syn 
tactic  construction- of  language  is  that  in  which  the  great 
est  number  of  ideas  are  comprised  in  the  least  number  of 
words." — Essays  of  an  Americanist,  p.  352. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  principle,  we  have  the  Chero 
kee  word,  winitazvtigeginaliskawlungtanawnelitisesti,  giv 
en  by  Bancroft,  which  translated  into  English  means 
"they  will  by  that  time  have  nearly  finished  granting 
favors  from  a  distance  to  thee  and  me." *  In  this  single 


Bancroft,  III:  555. 


484  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

word  of  forty-one  letters  is  expressed  a  thought  which 
requires  a  sentence  of  seventeen  English  words  to  express. 

Of  all  the  Old  World  tongues,  the  Basque  of  France 
comes  the  nearest  to  the  American  languages  in  this  poly- 
synthetic  peculiarity.  In  the  Basque,  however,  it  is  lim 
ited  to  a  few  parts  of  speech,  while  in  the  American  lan 
guages  it  extends  to  all.  Says  Dellenbaugh:  "While  the 
Basque  more  nearly  resembles  the  Amerind  languages 
than  does  any  other  Old  World  tongue,  it  stops  short  of 
the  incorporating  power  of  that  of  the  Amerinds.  In 
Basque  this  is  restricted  to  the  verb  and  some  pronominal 
elements,  but  in  the  Amerind  it  embraces  all  parts  of 
speech." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  p.  32. 

Bancroft  mentions  certain  other  peculiarities  of  the 
Indian  languages,  such  as  the  repetition  of  a  syllable  to 
form  a  plural ;  the  use  of  frequentatives  and  duals ;  gen 
der  applied  to  the  third  person  of  the  verb;  the  conver 
sion  of  nouns  into  verbs,  and  the  classification  of  things 
into  animate  and  inanimate  classes.1  To  these  may  be 
added  still  others,  as  given  by  Brinton,  such  as  the  utter 
absence  of  both  conjunctions  and  relative  pronouns;  the 
want  of  tense  forms ;  the  paucity  of  adjectives ;  the  rarity 
of  prepositions  and  the  absence  of  articles.2 

In  the  Indian  languages  nouns  are  connotive;  they  do 
not  simply  denote  the  name  of  an  object,  but  also  some 
quality  or  characteristic  of  the  object.  Thus,  in  many 
tribes  there  is  no  distinct  word  for  "father,"1  but  words 
signifying  "my  father,"  "your  father"  and  "his  father." 
Powell  says  that  "a  simply  denotive  name  is  rarely 
found."  Frequently  the  verb  is  used  for  the  noun,  as  in 
Ute  the  word  for  bear  means  "he  seizes"  or  "the  hugger." 

"Pronouns  are  only  to  a  limited  extent  independent 

1  Bancroft,  III:  556. 

2  "Essays   of  an  Americanist,"   pp.  404,  405. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


485 


words." — Powell.  Of  free  pronouns  there  are  two  kinds, 
personal  and  demonstrative,  of  which  the  latter  is  more 
frequently  used.  Thus  the  Indian  more  often  says  "that 
man"  than  "he."  Pronouns  occur  to  a  large  extent  with 
verbs  as  prefixes,  infixes  and  suffixes.  These  are  termed 
article  pronouns;  have  singular,  dual  and  plural  forms, 
and  are  an  important  consideration  in  the  conjugation  of 
the  verb,  pointing  out  gender,  person  and  number.  Rela 
tive  pronouns  and  conjunctions  do  not  occur.  In  speak 
ing  of  these,  Brinton  says:  "You  will  be  surprised  to 
hear  that  there  is  no  American  language,  none  that  I 
know,  which  possesses  either  of  these  parts  of  speech." 

Adjectives  occur  but  rarely.  "Few  American  tongues 
have  any  adjectives,  the  Cree,  for  instance,  not  a  dozen 
in  all." — Brinton.  Usually,  as  has  been  mentioned,  the 
qualities  or  characteristics  of  a  thing  are  implied  or 
designated  in  the  name  of  the  thing. 

"Prepositions  are  equally  rare,  and  articles  are  not 
found." — Brinton. 

The  verb  often  includes  within  itself  meanings  which 
in  English  would  be  expressed  by  adverbs  or  adverbial 
phrases  or  clauses.  Adjectives,  adverbs,  prepositions  and 
nouns  are  often  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  intransitive 
verbs.  "Equally  foreign  to  primitive  speech  was  any 
expression  of  time  in  connection  with  verbal  forms;  in 
other  words,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  tenses." — Brin 
ton.  Relative  time  is  indicated  by  the  use  of  adverbs  or 
time  particles  added  to  or  incorporated  in  the  verb.  The 
American  tongues  reveal  the  fact  that  at  one  time  in 
their  history  they  had  but  one  tense  which  served  to  ex 
press  action,  being  or  state  as  past,  present  or  future. 
To  illustrate:  I  go  (present)  ;  I  go  yesterday  (past)  ;  I 
go  to-morrow  (future). 

There   are   many   moods   in   the   Indian    languages. 


486  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Powell  gives  several  and  says  that  they  "are  of  great 
number."  Among  them  are  the  indicative,  the  mood  of 
simple  declaration;  the  dubitative,  the  mood  of  doubt; 
the  quotative,  the  mood  of  hearsay;  the  imperative.,  the 
mood  of  command;  the  implorative,  the  mood  of  im- 
ploration;  the  permissive,  the  mood  of  permission;  the 
negative,  the  mood  of  negation ;  the  simulative,  the  mood 
of  simultaneous  action ;  the  desiderative,  the  mood  of 
desire ;  the  obligative,  the  mood  of  obligation ;  the  fre 
quentative,  the  mood  of  repetition;  the  causative,  the 
mood  of  cause,  etc. 

Gender  in  the  Indian  tongues  does  not  express  a  dis 
tinction  in  sex,  but  a  classification  of  things  into  animate 
and  inanimate  classes.  "The  animate  may  again  be 
divided  into  male  and  female,  but  this  is  rarely  the  case." 
—Powell.  Both  classes  may  be  subdivided  into  the 
standing,  the  sitting  and  the  lying;  or  the  watery,  the 
mushy,  the  earthy,  the  stony,  etc. 

Powell  says :  "In  all  these  particulars  it  is  seen  that 
the  Indian  tongues  belong  to  a  very  low  type  of  organi 
zation." 

The  Hebrew  language  differs  structurally  from  the 
Indian  languages  in  the  following  respects :  ( i )  It  is 
highly  inflected.  (2)  Its  nouns  are  denotive.  (3)  It  is 
rich  in  adjectives.  (4)  It  has  two  tenses,  the  preterite 
and  future.  (5)  It  possesses  conjunctions,  a  relative 
pronoun  and  an  article.  (6)  Its  genders  do  not  divide 
things  into  animate  and  inanimate  classes.  (7)  It  em 
ploys  the  dual  but  sparingly.  (8)  It  does  not  form  its 
plurals  by  reduplication.  And  (9)  it  does  not  possess 
frequentatives.  These  differences  show  plainly  that  there 
is  not  the  remotest  relationship  between  the  Hebrew  and 
the  tongues  of  America.  Professor  Russell  remarks: 
"As  the  American  languages  have  no 'affinity  with  the 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  487 

Teutonic  or  Semitic  stocks,  it  is  evident  that  the  source 
or  sources  from  which  they  came  far  antedate  the  birth 
of  the  oldest  people  of  which  history  takes  cognizance. 
Man  must  therefore  have  set  foot  on  American  soil  be 
fore  the  sprouting-  of  the  linguistic  twig  which,  after 
millenniums,  produced  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  an 
cient  Persia  and  Assyria." — North  America,  p.  360. 

The  Egyptian  differs  from  the  Indian  languages: 
(i)  In  being  an  inflected  language.  (2)  In  possessing 
denotive  nouns.  (3)  In  its  great  number  of  adjectives. 
(4)  In  its  conjunctions,  relative  pronouns,  prepositions 
and  articles.  And  undoubtedly  in  a  number  of  other 
respects  which  my  lack  of  information  prevents  me  giv 
ing.1 

THE  DIVERSITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  LANGUAGES. 

According  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  Nephites 
understood  two  languages,  the  Egyptian  and  the  He 
brew,  and  from  these  we  are  asked  to  believe  the  great 
multitude  of  American  dialects  have  all  come  since  Lehi 
left  Jerusalem  in  600  B.  C.  On  the  contrary,  science 
shows  that  there  are  at  least  twelve  hundred  dialects  in 
the  two  Americas,  and  that  the  American  languages  have 
changed  slowly,  because  of  which  far  more  than  twenty- 
five  centuries  must  be  demanded  to  account  for  the  great 
diversity  that  exists  among  the  tongues  of  the  American 
tribes. 

Gallatin,  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  esti 
mated  the  number  of  American  languages  at  one  hun 
dred.  Squier  increased  the  number  to  four  hundred, 
while  Ameghino  found  eight  hundred  in  South  America 
alone.  Others  have  estimated  thirteen  hundred  for  both 
continents,  six  hundred  of  which  Bancroft  found  north 


See   "Egyptian   Language,"   by   Budge. 


488  CVMORAH  REVISITED 

of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  And  Dellenbaugh  gives  a  list 
of  eighteen  hundred  stocks,  sub-stocks  and  tribes  in  the 
northern  continent  alone,  but  as  he  mentions  several 
more  than  once  under  different  names,  the  list  would 
shrink  much  smaller,  but  Bancroft's  estimate  is  certainly 
small  enough.  Brinton  finds  180  linguistic  stocks  in 
the  New  World,  100  of  them  in  South  America.  Del 
lenbaugh  places  the  number  in  North  America  no  lower 
than  sixty-five,  and  says:  "At  least  sixty-five  of  the 
separate  stock  languages  are  distinguished  in  North 
America,  which  appear  so  radically  separated  from  each 
other  that  it  is  believed  impossible  that  they  ever  should 
have  sprung  from  the  same  parent,  unless  it  may  have 
been  at  a  time  so  remote  as  to  be  beyond  the  scope  of 
present  investigation." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday, 

p.  20. 

Some  of  the  dialects  of  a  single  stock  differ  from  one 
another  as  much  as  the  German  differs  from  the  Eng 
lish.  "Even  where  a  group  of  Amerinds  speak  related 
languages,  or  dialects/'  says  Dellenbaugh,  "there  are, 
and  were,  such  wide  variations  that  the  one  is  not  under 
stood  by  those  speaking  the  other." — Ibid,  p.  19.  He 
informs  us  that  within  the  limits  of  the  present  State  of 
California  alone  twenty  or  thirty  tribes  would  find  it 
impossible  to  understand  one  another ;  while,  in  a  limited 
area  in  Arizona,  a  Calif ornian  dialect  would  be  unintel 
ligible  to  four  tribes.  This  has  been  a  difficulty  that  our 
Indian  missionaries  have  encountered,  finding  that  the 
dialect  of  one  tribe  was  unintelligible  among  its  neigh 
bors. 

To  illustrate  this,  I  heie  give  a  number  of  common 
terms  from  the  various  Indian  languages  of  North  Amer 
ica.  In  Algonkin  the  word  for  the  supernatural  is  manito 
or  oki;  in  Iroquois  it  is  otkon;  in  Hidatsa,  hopa;  in 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  489 

Dakota,  wakan;  in  Aztec,  teotl;  and  in  Maya,  ku.  The 
word  for  "man"  with  the  Algonkin  is  innini;  with  the 
Iroquois,  onwi;  with  the  Eskimo,  inuk;  with  the  Apache, 
ailee  ;  with  the  Ziini,  oatse;  and  with  the  Mohave,  ipah. 
With  the  Klamath  the  word  for  "woman"  is  snaivats; 
with  the  Zuni  it  is  occfre  ;  with  the  Shoshone,  wepee;  with 
the  Choctaw,  ohoyo;  and  with  the  Creek,  hokti.  The 
word  for  "fire"  with  the  Apache  is  kou;  with  the  Choc- 
taw,  luak;  with  the  Creek,  tutka;  with  the  Mohawk, 
otsira;  and  with  the  Algonkin,  scota.  "Water,"  with  the 
Apache,  is  took;  with  the  Klamath,  ampo;  with  the  Aztec, 
all;  with  the  Choctaw,  oka;  with  the  Cherokee,  awa;  and 
with  the  Algonkin,  bish  or  waboo.  These  comparisons 
are  sufficient  to  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the  diversity 
in  words  that  exists  among  the  various  tribes.  By  both 
their  structure  and  roots  the  languages  of  the  New 
World  are  separated  from  those  of  the  Old;  by  certain 
minor  structural  differences  and  by  their  roots,  stock  is 
separated  from  stock  ;  and  by  their  words,  tribe  from 
tribe. 

Languages  change  slowly.  George  Bancroft  writes: 
"Nothing  is  so  indelible  as  speech:  sounds  that,  in  ages 
of  unknown  antiquity,  were  spoken  among  the  nations 
of  Hindostan,  still  live  in  their  significancy  in  the  lan 
guage  which  we  daily  utter."  —  U.  S.  History,  Vol.  III.,  p. 


Nott  and  Gliddon  ascribe  to  the  Chinese  and  Coptic 
an  age  of  five  thousand  years.  The  Basque  and  Iberian 
are  said  to  be  three  thousand  years  old,  while  the  Welsh 
and  Erse  are  known  to  possess  an  antiquity  of  two  thou 
sand  years  and  are  probably  much  older. 

Coming  to  the  New  World,  we  find  tribes  using 
words  and  grammatical  constructions  employed  by  their 
ancestors  in  remote  antiquity.  Dr.  Stohl  estimates  that 


490  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

"the  difference  which  is  presented  between  the  Cak- 
chiquel  and  Maya  dialects  could  not  have  arisen  in  less 
than  two  thousand  years." — Essays  of  an  Americanist, 
p.  35.  These  are  dialects  of  the  same  language,  the 
Mayan,  and  if  it  took  two  thousand  years  to  create  the 
difference  that  exists  between  them  how  much  more  time 
must  have  been  necessary  to  create  the  difference  that 
exists  between  the  Maya  and  the  Algonkin. 

Dellenbaugh  says:  "Thus  it  seems  probable  that  the 
Amerind  languages  extant  have  been  spoken  nearly  as  we 
know  them  to-day  for  a  great  many  centuries,  and  that 
modifications  crept  in  slowly ;  so  slowly  that  the  language 
roots  and  grammatical  construction  of  the  various  stocks 
are  so  distinct  that  they  form  the  safest  guide  now  avail 
able  in  the  classification  of  the  various  branches  of  the 
Amerind  race;  and,  furthermore,  that,  judged  by  these 
tests,  these  languages  have  no  relationship  to  any  other 
group." — North  Americans  of  Yesterday,  pp.  24,  25. 

Squier  writes :  "It  is  the  length  of  time  which  this 
prodigious  subdivision  of  languages  in  America  must 
have  required,  making  every  allowance  for  the  greater 
changes  to  which  unwritten  languages  are  liable,  and  for 
the  necessary  breaking  up  of  nations  in  a  hunter  state 
into  separate  communities.  For  these  changes,  Mr.  Gal- 
latin  claims,  we  must  have  the  very  longest  time  we  are 
permitted  to  assume ;  and,  if  it  is  considered  necessary  to 
derive  the  American  races  from  the  other  continent,  that 
the  migration  must  have  taken  place  at  the  earliest  assign 
able  period." — Types  of  Mankind,  p.  281. 

And  Russell  says:  "It  is  a  warrantable  inference, 
therefore,  that  the  marvelous  diversity  in  speech  present 
in  America  could  only  have  arisen  by  a  process  of  evolu 
tion  involving  a  very  long  period  of  time." — North  Amer 
ica,  p.  360. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


491 


And  yet,  with  this  prodigious  diversity  of  the  Ameri 
can  languages  and  dialects,  and  the  additional  fact  that 
languages  change  their  structure  and  roots  slowly,  before 
us,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  all  these  American 
tongues  originated  not  more  than  twenty-five  hundred 
years  ago  in  two  languages  brought  over  from  the  Old 
World  to  which  they  bear  no  analogies  in  construction 
and  but  few  resemblances  in  words ! 

SUPPOSED  BOOK  OF  MORMON  WORDS  IN  AMERICAN- 
NOMENCLATURE. 

A  favorite  argument  against  the  authenticity  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon  has  been  that  none  of  the  names  of 
men,  places  and  countries  mentioned  therein  have  come 
down  to  us  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  American  tribes. 
Indeed,  it  seems  that  the  orthographical  principles  under 
lying  the  spelling  of  American  names  are  not  those 
underlying  the  spelling  of  the  names  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon. 

From  time  to  time,  however,  Mormon  writers  have 
tried  to  answer  this  objection  by  citing  the  names  of 
individuals,  cities  and  places  in  America  which  more  or 
less  closely  correspond  with  those  of  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon,  pleading  time,  change  and  apostasy  as  the  reasons 
why  more  and  closer  correspondences  are  not  found.  On 
this  point  I  quote  from  the  "Manual  of  the  Young  (Mor 
mon)  Men's  Mutual  Improvement  Associations,"  for 
1905-1906,  p.  543:  "One  recognizes  here  a  real  difficulty, 
and  one  for  which  it  is  quite  hard  to  account.  It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that  from  the  close  of  the 
Nephite  period,  420  A.  D.,  to  the  coniing  of  the  Span 
iards  in  the  sixteenth  century,  we  have  a  period  of  over 
one  thousand  years;  and  we  have  the  triumph  also  of  the 
Lamanites  over  the  Nephites  bent  on  the  destruction  of 


492  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

every  vestige  of  Nephite  traditions  and  institutions.  May 
it  not  be  that  they  recognized  as  one  of  the  means  of 
achieving  such  destruction  the  abrogation  of  the  old, 
familiar  names  of  things  and  persons?  Besides,  there  is 
the  probable  influx  of  other  tribes  and  peoples  into 
America  in  that  one  thousand  years  whose  names  may 
have  largely  taken  the  place  of  Nephite  and  Lamanite 
names." 

This  explanation,  however,  is  by  no  means  satisfac 
tory.  It  would  require  far  more  than  one  thousand  years 
to  blot  out  the  names  of  so  widespread  a  race  as  the 
Nephites,  when  a  remnant  of  them  escaped  destruction 
at  Cumorah  and  when  many  of  their  names  were  in  com 
mon  use  among  the  Lamanites.  Again,  many  of  the 
names  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  are  Lamanite  names,  and 
though  a  people  might  attempt  to  blot  out  the  language 
of  their  enemies,  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  they  would 
try  to  blot  out  their  own.  If  the  Indians  are  Lamanites, 
why  have  Lamanite  names  not  passed  down  to  us? 
Lastly,  the  supposition  that  foreign  tribes  and  peoples 
may  have  migrated  to  America  and  may  have  supplanted 
Nephite  and  Lamanite  names  with  those  of  their  own 
languages,  is  nullified  by  every  line  of  evidence  which 
we  have.  If  such  influxes  of  immigration  have  occurred 
since  420  A.  D.,  they  have  not  been  sufficient  to  tinge  the 
stock,  let  alone  affect  the  language. 

The  American  names  which  the  author  of  the  fore 
going  extract  thinks  have  come  from  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon  vocabulary  are  Nahuas  from  Nephites,  Hohgates 
from  Hagoth,  Amazon  from  Ammon  and  Andes  from 
Anti-Nephi-Lehi,  Anti-Omno,  Anti-Pas  or  Anti-Parah. 
But  the  resemblance  between  these  various  names  is  so 
slight  that,  without  comment,  I  give  to  the  writer  all  that 
he  can  prove  by  it.  It  requires  the  fervid  imagination  of 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  493 

a  visionary  to  see  in  these  American  names  even  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  those  given  in  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon. 

In  the  Saints'  Herald  of  April  4,  1906,  under  the 
heading,  "For  the  Wisdom  of  Their  Wise  Men  Shall 
Perish"  (Isa.  29:14),  appears  an  article  on  Book  of 
Mormon  names  in  American  nomenclature,  in  which  the 
following  list  of  comparisons  is  given : 

Book   of  Mormon,  1830.                                           Lately  Found. 

Nephites,  Neophites. 

Laman,  Laman. 

Manti,  Manti. 

Cumeni,  Cuemani. 

Moroni,  Morona,   Maroni,   Marroni. 

David,  David. 

Sam,  Sami. 

Mulek,  Muluc. 

Moron,  Moron. 

Desolation,  Desaldo    (the   Spanish  name 

for  desolation). 

The  writer  of  this  article  finds  these  supposed  Book 
of  Mormon  names  in  works  on  geography,  history  and 
American  ethnology.  But  the  erroneousness  of  most  of 
them  is  detected  with  little  research,  while  the  difficulty 
connected  with  the  rest  is  that  the  defenders  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon  are  not  able  to  prove  that  they  are  due  to 
inheritance  and  are  not  accidental.  Of  the  names  in  the 
first  column  taken  from  the  Book  of  Mormon,  Nephites 
is  the  name  of  a  people;  Laman,  the  name  of  an  indi 
vidual,  one  of  the  sons  of  Lehi ;  Manti,  the  name  of  a 
city  in  the  land  of  Zarahemla,  the  present  country  of 
Colombia ;  Cumeni,  also  the  name  of  a  city  in  the  land 
of  Zarahemla ;  Moroni,  the  name  of  the  Nephite  who  is 
said  to  have  deposited  the  Book  of  Mormon  in  Hill 
Cumorah;  David,  a  city  in  the  land  of  David,  the  south 
ern  part  of  Nicaragua ;  Sam,  a  brother  of  Nephi ;  Mulek, 
one  of  the  sons  of  Zedekiah  and  the  leader  of  the  second 
colony  that  came  from  Jerusalem ;  Moron,  the  capital  of 
the  Jaredites;  and  Desolation,  the  name  of  a  Nephite 


494  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

land  comprising  most  of  the  present  states  of  Nicaragua 
and  Costa  Rica.  These  names  the  author  of  the  article 
mentioned  claims  he  has  found,  some  more  or  less  cor 
rupted,  in  America. 

1.  On  Neophites,  which  he  gives  as  the  equivalent  of 
Nephites,   he   says:   "See   Bancroft,   Native   Races,   Vol. 
I.,  p.  450,  edition  1882,  'Neophites,'  an  Indian  tribe."  But 
by  consulting  Bancroft  I  find  that  a  ludicrous  blunder 
has  been  made.    The  passage  which  is  referred  to  reads : 
"Tame   Indians   or   Neophites:    Lakisumne,    Shonomne, 
Fawalomnes,  Mukeemnes,  Cosumne."   If  our  author  had 
consulted  Webster  he  would  have  found  that  "neophites" 
is  not  an  original  Indian  word  at  all,  but  is  simply  the 
English  word  "neophytes"  incorrectly  spelled.   This  word 
is  not  the  name  of  an  Indian  tribe  at  all,  but  is  a  term 
meaning  "new  converts  or  proselytes."     The  tribes  men 
tioned  are  some  of  the  Christianized  tribes  living  near, 
or  upon,  the  Pacific  Coast.     If  some  of  our  Mormon 
friends  would  only  bound  their  zeal  with  a  little  judg 
ment  and  practical  information,  they  would  often  save 
themselves  much  cruel  mortification  over  such  inexcusa 
ble  blunders. 

2.  On  the  existence  of  the  name  Laman  in  America 
he  cites  Stamford's  "Compendium  of  Geography  of  Cen 
tral  and  South  America,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  23,  edition  of  Lon 
don,  1901 : 

"Mexican  and  Central  American  Stock  Races  and  Languages. 
Ethnical  and  Historical  Relations. 

Stock.  Main  Division.  Location. 

Chontal,  LAMAN,  Nicaragua. 

Honduras. 

Costa  Rica." 

Now,  I  do  not  deny  the  genuineness  of  the  above 
reference,   but  the  classification   is   certainly   erroneous. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


495 


No  such  stock  as  the  Chontal  exists.  Brinton  gives  this 
definition  of  the  term:  "No  such  family  exists.  The 
word  chontalli  in  the  Nahuatl  language  means  simply 
'stranger/  and  was  applied  by  the  Nahuas  to  any  people 
other  than  their  own." — The  American  Race,  p.  147. 
Bancroft  is  of  the  same  opinion,  and  says:  "I  am  there 
fore  of  the  opinion  that  no  such  nations  as  Chontals  or 
Popolucas  exist,  but  that  these  names  were  employed  by 
the  more  civilized  nations  to  designate  people  speaking 
other  and  barbarous  tongues." — Native  Races,  Vol.  III., 
p.  783.  The  name  Lamans  is  the  name  of  a  small  tribe 
in  the  eastern  part  of  Nicaragua.  It  is  so  insignificant 
that  it  is  not  even  mentioned  in  the  ethnographical  lists 
of  Bancroft,  Brinton  and  Dellenbaugh.  On  its  deriva 
tion  I  am  not  able  to  speak,  as  I  have  not  found  more 
than  its  mere  mention. 

3.  The  name  Manti  Mormons  have  found  in  the 
American  Antiquarian,  Vol.  XXII.,  No.  2,  March  and 
April,  1900,  p.  129,  in  the  account  of  the  finding  of  cer 
tain  archaeological  remains  in  Ecuador. 

"Near  Manti,  Ecuador,  is  a  remarkable  archaeological 
relic,  one  of  the  most  interesting  monuments  in  South 
America  of  an  unknown  and  extinct  civilization.  Upon 
a  platform  of  massive  blocks  of  stone,  upon  a  summit  of 
a  low  hill  in  a  natural  amphitheater  and  arranged  in  a 
perfect  circle,  are  thirty  enormous  stone  chairs,  evidently 
'The  Seats  of  the  Mighty.'  Each  chair  is  a  monolith, 
cut  from  a  solid  block  of  granite,  and  they  are  all  fine 
specimens  of  stone  carving.  The  seat  rests  upon  the 
back  of  a  crouching  sphinx,  which  has  a  decidedly  Egyp 
tian  appearance.  There  are  no  backs  to  the  chairs,  but 
two  broad  arms.  This  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  place 
of  meeting — an  open-air  council  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
several  tribes  that  made  up  the  prehistoric  nation,  which 


496  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

was  subdued  by  the  Incas  of  Peru  several  hundred  years 
before  the  Spanish  invasion." 

I  carefully  looked  through  several  directories  and 
gazetteers,  besides  Rand-McNally's  "Indexed  Pocket 
Map  of  Ecuador,  Peru  and  Bolivia,"  for  this  place,  but 
to  no  avail.  The  nearest  that  I  was  able  to  come  to  it 
was  in  Manta,  the  name  of  a  city  in  Ecuador  in  the 
province  of  Manabi  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  I  then  wrote 
to  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet,  editor  of  the  American  Antiquarian, 
asking  him  if  it  were  not  possible  that  in  the  above 
description  a  mistake  had  been  made,  and  that  it  should 
read  Manta  in  place  of  Manti.  To  this  letter  of  inquiry 
I  received  the  following  reply,  dated  at  Chicago,  Feb 
ruary  22,  1908: 

"In  reply  to  yours  of  the  nth  inst.,  in  regard  to  the 
name  'Manti/  or  'Manta/  occurring  in  my  American 
Antiquarian,  Vol.  XXII.,  No.  2,  p.  129,  let  me  say  that 
the  word  must  have  been  misspelt,  and  it  should  have 
been  'Manta.'  Truly,  there  is  no  'Manti'  in  Ecuador,  and 
'Manta'  is  correct." 

This  settles  the  matter,  then,  of  the  spelling  of  the 
name  of  this  place.  But  Manta  is  not  an  original  Amer 
ican  name  at  all,  but  is  of  Spanish  derivation,  meaning, 
according  to  the  "Century  Dictionary,"  an  enormous 
devil-fish  or  sea-devil,  an  eagle-ray  of  the  family  Cera- 
topteridoe.  Brinton  also  mentions  a  tribe  of  Indians 
called  Mantas  who  lived  in  this  locality.1 

4.  The  next  Book  of  Mormon  name  which  this  writer 
claims  he  has  found  in  a  corrupted  state  in  America 
is  Cuemani  for  Cumeni.  He  says :  "See  Rand,  McNally 
&  Co.'s  Index  Atlas  of  the  World,  revised  edition, 
page  351,  map  of  Colombia,  'M.  io/  Near  the  equator 

a  "The  American  Race,"  p.  207. 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED 


497 


you  will  find  the  city  of  Cuemani.  Compare  with  our 
Archaeological  Committee's  Report  on  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon,  map  of  the  Land  of  Zarahemla,  Map  No.  14,  and 
you  will  find  that  Rand,  McNally  &  Co.  find  Cuemani 
just  where  Book  of  Mormon  map  locates  Cumeni." 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  a  city  by  the  name  of 
Cuemani  on  the  Rand-McNally  map  of  Columbia,  but  I 
have  found  the  Cuemani  River  at  "M.  10."  This  is  not, 
however,  "just  where  the  Book  of  Mormon  map  locates 
Cumeni,"  but  about  three  hundred  miles  to  the  southeast 
of  where  that  city  is  located.  On  the  derivation  of  this 
name  I  am  not  certain,  but  I  am  strongly  of  the  opinion 
that  it  is  a  Spanish-American  term  and  that  it  is  pro 
nounced  either  Koo-a-man-^^  or  Koo-a-man-ee,  c  before 
u,  in  Spanish,  having  the  sound  of  k,  u  the  sound  of  oo, 
e  the  sound  of  long  a,  a  the  sound  of  a  in  father,  and  i 
the  sound  of  long  e. 

5.  Our  author  finds  Moroni  in  America  under  the 
various  spellings  of  Maroni,  Marroni  and  Morona.    Ma- 
roni  is  the  name  of  a  river  which  divides  French  and 
Dutch  Guiana  and  is  pronounced  Ma-ro-nee.     Marroni 
is  the  name  of  a  people,  pronunciation  unknown.     Ma- 
rona  is  the  name   of  a   river   in   Ecuador  and  is  pro 
nounced  like  Moroni,  but  this  does  not  signify  that  it  is 
a  corrupted  Nephite  word.     In  fact,  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  this  word,  too,  comes  from  the  Romance  languages. 

6.  On  the   location   of   a   supposed   modern  city   of 
David  our  author  says:   "See   Columbian   Atlas  of  the 
World,  map  of   South   America.     In  the   northern   ex 
tremity  of  Colombia    (Central   America)    you  will  find 
the  city  of  David.     Compare  this  with  Book  of  Mormon 
Map  No.  5.     Location  is  remarkably  close." 

As  no  such  city  is  given  on  the  Rand-McNally  map 
of  Colombia,  and  as  it  is  not  mentioned  in  their  list  of 


498  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Colombian  towns  and  cities,  I  very  much  doubt  if  such 
a  city  exists,  but  if  it  does  there  is  absolutely  no  doubt 
that  its  name  dates  from  this  side  of  the  beginning  of  the 
Spanish  occupation  of  that  region. 

7.  The  Book  of  Mormon  name  Sam  he  discovers  in 
the  "Nineteenth  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Eth 
nology,"   Part  II.,   pp.  605,  625   and  628,   in  the   form 
Sami.      He    says:    "Professor   Thomas,   of   the    United 
States   Bureau   of   Ethnology,   tells    us   this   name   was 
found  among  an  ancient  tribe,  one  who  preserved  their 
language  and  customs  from  contamination  with  foreign 
tribes  or  people." 

I  have  followed  up  his  references  and  find  that  Sami 
is  the  name  of  an  individual  in  the  Tenya  clan,  and  also 
in  the  Antelope  Society  at  Walpi,  Arizona.  But  how 
does  he  know  that  this  name  is  a  corruption  of  Sam? 
He  is  welcome  to  all  that  it  proves  for  the  historical 
credibility  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

8.  Muluc,  which  he  thinks  is  a  corruption  of  Mulek, 
the  leader  of  the  Mulekites,  he  finds  in  the  nomenclature 
of  the  calendar  system  of  Central  America.    Other  Mor 
mon  writers   have  pointed  out  the   similarity  of   these 
words  before.     Apostle  Kelley  writes:  "There  is  some 
thing  of  marked  significance  in  a  statement   found  on 
page  425  of  'North  Americans  of  Antiquity/  in  regard 
to  the  word  'Mulek.'     The  'Book  of  Mormon'  affirms 
that  at  the  time  the  Jews  were  taken  captive  to  Babylon, 
'Mulek/  one  of  the  sons  of  Zedekiah,  came  over,  with 
others,  to  this  continent,  and  settled  in  Central  America ; 
and  in  the  account  above  referred  to  the  statement  is 
made  that,  'By  means  of  Landa's  key,  Mr.  Bollaert  trans 
lated  some  of  the  hieroglyphics  found  in  Yucatan,  and 
the  word  'Mulek'  or  'Muluc/  as  written  by  Short,  was 
deciphered,  and  was  found  to  mean  'to  unite/  'reunion/ 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  499 

Considering  that  historical  statement  in  the  'Book  of 
Mormon/  that  there  was  a  union  formed,  or  federation 
between  the  Nephites  and  Mulekites  in  Central  America, 
in  primeval  times,  and  it  goes  far  to  prove  that  there 
was  something  more  than  fancy  and  guesswork,  the 
emanations  from  the  brains  of  mere  men,,  that  inspired 
the  revelation  of  the  'Book  of  Mormon.'  " — Presidency 
and  Priesthood,  p.  288. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  only  a  gratuitous  assump 
tion  that  Muluc  is  a  corrupted  form  of  Mulek.  In  the 
second,  the  words  are  only  similar  and  not  identical  in 
either  spelling  or  pronunciation.  In  the  third  place,  Muluc 
is  the  name  of  one  of  the  twenty  days  in  the  Maya  calen 
dar  and  not  the  name  of  a  personage  in  their  mythology. 
In  the  fourth,  the  Book  of  Mormon  character,  Mulek, 
was  dead  and  buried  over  three  hundred  years  before  the 
people  of  Zarahemla  and  the  Nephites  united,  therefore 
Muluc,  which  means  "to  unite"  or  "reunion,"  if  it  is  a 
corruption  of  Mulek,  could  not  have  derived  its  signifi 
cance  from  that  event.  In  the  fifth,  the  word  Muluc  is 
found  in  the  language  of  a  people  who  lived  over  eight 
hundred  miles  from  the  region  where  the  union  between 
the  Nephites  and  Zarahemlaites  is  said  to  have  taken 
place,  and  whose  language,  traditions  and  architecture 
show  that  they  came  from  the  opposite  direction.  And, 
lastly,  the  root  of  this  word,  mol  or  mul,  is  not  Hebrew, 
but  is  pure  Maya,  meaning  "a  coming  together,  or  piling 
up.'" 

9.  The  name  Moron  the  discoverer  of  these  compari 
sons  finds  in  South  America.  He  says:  "See  Bradley's 
Atlas  of  the  World,  edition  1895,  Argentine  Republic, 
'J.  19,'  Moron"  But  this  name  is  pure  Spanish  and  is 

1  "Mayan  Primer,"  p.    m, 


500  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

the  name  of  a  city  in  Spain.  As  the  population  of  the 
Argentine  Republic  are  chiefly  of  Spanish  descent,  it  is 
very  probable  that  they  named  this  city  after  that  in 
their  fatherland.  It  is  pronounced  Mo-rown. 

The  last  comparison  I  omit,  as  it  is  wholly  absurd 
and  only  shows  to  what  extremes  some  men  will  go  in 
order  to  prove  a  false  theory. 

If  the  names  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  prove  anything, 
they  prove  that  it  is  a  base  imposture,  unworthy  of  our 
respect  and  belief,  for  a  large  proportion  of  them  were 
known  to  the  world  long  before  the  book  appeared.  Not 
a  few  of  the  names  of  men  and  of  places  mentioned  in 
the  book  have  been  taken  from  the  Old  and  New  Testa 
ments.  Of  the  36o-odd  names  given  in  the  Josephite 
"Book  of  Mormon  Vocabulary,"  I  counted  over  one  hun 
dred  which  appear  in  our  Bible,  while  many  more  are  but 
variations  of  these.  Mormons  explain  the  occurrence  of 
these  Bible  names  by  the  claim  that  the  Nephites  were 
Jews  and  had  the  greater  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  hence  that  it  would  be  only  natural  that  they 
should  use  Bible  names.  This  explanation  may  .appear 
plausible,  but  how  can  they  account  for  the  occurrence 
of  the  Greek,  Latin,  Italian,  Spanish  and  Yankee  names 
which  appear?  Did  the  Jaredites  and  Nephites  under 
stand  these  languages  also?  Moron,  the  name  of  a 
Jaredite  city  and  country,  is  the  name  of  a  city  in  Spain. 
Nephi,  the  name  of  the  leader  of  the  Nephites,  is  Greek, 
from  nephei,  third  person,  singular  number  of  ncpho,  "to 
be  sober."  Sam,  the  name  of  the  brother  of  Nephi,  is 
the  Yankee  nickname  for  Samuel.  Alma,  the  name  of 
one  of  the  Nephite  judges,  is  the  Latin  word  for  "be 
nign."  Antipas  is  an  abbreviation  of  Antipater.  Angola 
is  the  name  of  a  region  in  Africa.  Moroni,  the  name  of 
the  last  of  the  Nephites  of  royal  blood,  is  the  name  of  an 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  501 

Italian  painter,  Giovanni  Battista  Moroni,  who  was  born 
in  1525  and  died  in  1578.  While  even  the  word  Mor 
mon,  although  Mormons  deny  it,  is  undoubtedly  a  cor 
ruption  of  the  Greek  mormo,  which  means  "a  bugbear,  a 
monster  used  by  nurses  to  frighten  children." 

Joseph  Smith,  however,  in  denying  this,  gives  the 
following  explanation  of  its  origin:  "We  say  from  the 
Saxon,  good;  the  Dane,  god;  the  Goth,  goda;  the  Ger 
man,  gut;  the  Dutch,  goed;  the  Latin,  bonus;  the  Greek, 
kalos;  the  Hebrew,  fob;  and  the  Egyptian,  mon.  Hence, 
with  the  addition  of  'more,'  or  the  contraction  mor,  we 
have  the  word  Mormon,  which  means,  literally,  more 
good." 

'  But  stop  for  a  moment  and  consider  the  ridiculous 
ness  of  this  claim.  "More"  is  good  Anglo-Saxon;  mon, 
I  presume,  is  Reformed  Egyptian,  for  it  is  certainly  not 
Egyptian,  the  word  for  good  in  which  is  nefer.1  But 
how  could  the  Nephites  obtain  the  first  syllable  of  this 
interesting  hybrid,  being  wholly  ignorant  of  the  exist 
ence  of  such  a  people  as  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  being 
separated  from  them  by  miles  of  water?  Here  is  an 
other  problem  for  Mormon  ingenuity  to  solve. 

1  "Egyptian  Language,"   p.    113.     "Essays   of  an  Americanist,"   p.   216. 


502  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


CHAPTER   X. 

The     Hieroglyphics     of     America — The     "Caractors" — Mormon 
"Collateral  Evidence"  Frauds — Conclusion. 

Probably  no  invention  that  man  has  made  has  been 
as  useful  to  him  as  has  the  alphabet.  It  has  proved  as 
essential  to  his  progress  in  civilization  as  the  air  he 
breathes  is  to  the  life  of  his  body.  Without  it  his  wide 
spread  business  and  political  relations  would  be  im 
possible,  and  he  would  be  as  ignorant  of  the  achieve 
ments  of  the  past  as  the  brute  is  of  his  origin. 

But  the  alphabet,  as  we  have  it  to-day,  is  not  the 
sudden  invention  of  a  moment,  but  is  the  growth  of 
centuries,  developing  through  various  stages  from  the 
picture-writing  of  our  savage  ancestors.  The  stages 
through  which  the  art  of  writing  has  passed  may,  for 
convenience,  be  stated  as  the  representative,  the  symbolic 
and  the  phonetic,  though,  as  there  are  no  hard  and  fast 
lines  between  these  successive  stages,  this  classification 
may  be  considered  somewhat  arbitrary. 

Bancroft  describes  and  illustrates  these  various  stages 
of  writing  as  follows:  "Picture-writing  may  be  divided, 
according  to  the  successive  stages  of  its  development, 
into  three  classes,  representative,  symbolic  and  phonetic, 
no  one  of  which  except  the  last  in  its  highest  or  alpha 
betic,  and  the  first  in  its  rudest,  state,  would  be  used 
alone  by  any  people,  but  rather  all  would  be  employed 
together.  In  the  representative  stage  a  fe  might  ex 
press  a  human  hand,  or,  as  the  system  is  perfected,  a 
large,  small,  closed,  black  or  red  hand ;  and  finally  'Big 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  503. 

Hand/  an  Indian  chief ;  and  all  this  would  be  equally  in 
telligible  to  American  or  Asiatic,  savage  or  civilized, 
without  respect  to  language. 

"Symbolic  picture-writing  indicates  invisible  or  ab 
stract  objects,  actions  or  conditions,  by  the  use  of  pictures 
supposed  to  be  suggestive  of  them;  the  symbols  are 
originally  in  a  manner  representative,  and  rarely,  if 
ever,  arbitrarily  adopted.  As  a  symbol  the  fc  might 
express  power,  a  blow,  murder,  the  number  one  or  five. 
These  symbols  are  also  independent  of  language. 

"Phonetic  picture-writing  represents  not  objects,  but 
sounds  by  the  picture  of  objects  in  whose  names  the 
sound  occurs ;  first  words,  then  syllables,  then  elementary 
sounds,  and  last — by  modification  of  the  pictures  or  the 
substitution  of  simpler  ones — letters  and  an  alphabet. 
According  to  this  system,  the  fe  signifies  successively 
the  word  'hand/  the  syllable  'hand'  in  handsome,  the 
sound  'ha'  in  happy,  the  aspiration  'h'  in  head,  and 
finally,  by  simplifying  its  form  or  writing  it  rapidly,  the 
fe  becomes  |  ,  and  then  the  *h'  of  the  alphabet." — 
Native  Races,  Vol.  IL,  pp.  536,  537. 

By  "the  record  of  America's  great  and  glorious  past," 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  we  are  informed  that  the  ancient 
Americans  employed  phonetic  systems  of  writing.  Their 
official  written  language,  which  they  were  pleased  to 
call  the  "Reformed  Egyptian,"  possessed,  so  we  are 
told,  an  alphabet  which  was  made  up  of  characters  either 
identical  with,  or  resembling,  the  characters  in  the  writ 
ten  languages  of  the  Egyptians,  Chaldeans,  Assyrians, 
Greeks,  Hebrews  and  Romans. 

I  deem  it  best  to  let  the  Mormons  themselves  state 
their  own  position  on  the  origin  of  their  Reformed 
Egyptian  alphabet.  Apostle  Kelley,  president  of  the 
Quorum  of  Twelve  Apostles,  and  a  standard  authority 


504  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

in  the  Josephite  Church,  writes:  "These  evidences  all 
unite,  and  confirm  the  truth  of  the  claims  of  the  'Book 
of  Mormon/  that  it  answers  to  the  prediction  found  in 
the  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  Isaiah  concerning  the 
'Sealed  Book,'  and  that  it  came  forth  in  fulfillment 
thereof ;  that  it  is  a  true  record  of  the  ancient  inhabitants 
of  America;  and  that  they  did  occupy  this  land  in  pre 
historic  times,  and  were  an  intelligent,  God-fearing  and 
accomplished  race  of  people;  that  they  understood  the 
arts  and  sciences,  and  had  a  regular  and  well-defined 
system  of  writing;  that  their  alphabet  was  derived  from 
the  old  original  alphabet,  from  which  all  the  alphabets 
of  modern  Europe  were  derived,  and  was  composed  of 
characters  identical  with  and  resembling  the  Egyptian, 
Chaldaic,  Assyrian,  Greek,  Hebrew  and  Roman  letters, 
with  symbols,  circles  and  pictorial  emblems." — Presi 
dency  and  Priesthood,  pp.  291,  292. 

There  are  two  assertions  made  in  this  extract  which 
it  will  be  well  for  the  reader  to  keep  in  mind :  First,  that 
the  characters  of  the  written  language  of  ancient  Amer 
ica  were  alphabetic;  and,  secondly,  that  they  were  of 
exotic  origin,  being  identical  with  characters  in  the  writ 
ten  languages  of  the  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  Chaldeans, 
Greeks,  Hebrews  and  Romans.  How  a  Brinton  or  a 
Thomas  would  smile  were  they  to  read  the  wise  con 
clusions  of  Apostle  Kelley! 

The  evidences  by  which  Mr.  Kelley 's  claims  must  be 
tested  are  from  two  sources:  the  evidences  from  the 
monuments  and  the  evidences  from  the  manuscripts. 
And  these  will  confine  our  investigations  entirely  to  Cen 
tral  America  and  Mexico,  there  being  no  proof,  what 
ever,  that  any  tribe  south  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
or  north  o'f  the  northern  boundary  line  of  Mexico  em 
ployed  marks  to  represent  sounds,  the  hieroglyphics  in 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


505 


use  outside  of  this  territory  being  purely  ideographic  in 
character. 

In  Central  America  and  Mexico  the  ancient  inhab 
itants  painted  or  engraved  their  characters   on   several 


FIGURE  14.      MEXICAN  PICTOGRAPHS,  PAGE  43,  BORGIAN  CODEX. 
Permission  U.  S.  Bureau  Ethnology. 

materials,  such  as  stone,  wood,  pottery,  plaster,  cotton 
cloth,  skins  and  a  kind  of  paper  made  from  the  maguey 
plant.  The  monuments  on  which  they  engraved  their 
hieroglyphics  were  chiefly  buildings,  altars  and  obelisks 


5o6  CVMQRAH  REVISITED 

and  the  w«w*  among  the  Mayas  was  evidently  done  with 
ffcay  flinaii  \****s,  while  among  the  Mexicans  the  engrav- 
Mg  iMplettw-t^  were  sometimes  of  bronze.  The  manu 
scripts  of  VJK  former  were  made  of  native  paper  cut  into 
strips  ten  ?-,^bes  wide  and  of  any  desired  length,  which 
were  fofeftpj  m  the  manner  of  a  screen  and  were  en 
closed  between  boards,  painted  and  ornamented  with 
various  dtrogns.  The  paper  was  coated  with  a  white 
wax  on  wfewrh  were  painted,  on  both  sides,  the  hiero 
glyphic*  m  >udi  colors  as  brown,  red,  yellow,  blue  and 
blade  The  maaaffcripts  of  the  latter  were  made  of  cot 
ton  cloth,  prepared  skins  or  maguey  paper,  chiefly  the 
latter,  and  were  usually  made  as  the  Mayas  made  their 
books*  The  Maya  manuscripts  which  have  come  down 
to  as  are  four  in  number:  the  Codices  Troanus  and 
CorttiStimtfi  probably  parts  of  the  same  book,  which  are 
now  in  Madrid ;  the Cbdfex  Pereaianus,  which  is  in  Paris; 
and  the  Codex  Dresdensi*,  which  is  in  Dresden.  Un 
fortunately  for  the  cause  of  science,  many  of  the  most 
valuable  of  the  Mexican  manuscripts  were  destroyed 
by  the  fanatical  Btshop  Zumarraga  soon  after  the  Con- 
quest,  and  but  few  escaped  These  are  the  O><\\< •<•••> 
t'atftmtii  I '•//'•/•/'///"  /•'<•///<•//./,,  Bofguii't^, 
and  some  others  of  less  importance.  The 
Qwches  had  a  sacred  book,  the  "Popul  Vuh,"  as  di<! 
Hi  '  '.-.I..  inTi.-i.  vJn<i,  ira,  caiic.i  ill.;  "X*t**  at  Tee- 
pan  Atitlan/' 

The  Meroglypbk*  of  the  Mexicans  are  very  different 
from  those  of  the  Mayas,  being  of  a  lower  grade,  and, 
evidently,  of  not  io  great  an  antiquity,  'The  graphic 
f  the  Maya*  of  Yucatan,"  §ay»  J'.MMIMI,  "was 
very  different  from  that  of  the  Aztecs.  No  one  at  all 
familiar  wfth  the  tw<»  .  ,11  M  i.d  .,t  onec  to  '(<  tfngtfi  i> 
between  the  manuscript*  of  the  two  nations.  They 


-     .  r^     .-.     .    : 

Tlie  Maya 
e»di  of  ^biA  i$ 
wiit^s  «  n^tw^"    As  «* 

outlines,  «nd  $1^% 
this   strfe   of 

* 


are   arrayed  dthcr  in  rows 
direction  in  which  they  aw  to»  Ke> 


Has 


Keen 


a  part  of  the  inscnplicvn  cm  one  ot  the 
Temple  of  the  Cross  at  PaJenques  sa>^  however:  ^Not 
withstanding  the  fact  Mat  hut  few  of  the  charecras 
have  been  deterwine^i,  the  direction  in  which  the  tn- 
scnption  is  to  be  read  is  known.  It  begins  xvhh  the 
large  symbol  in  the  ti|>per  left-hand  i\>nwr  of  the  left 
slab.  This  covers  the  space  of  font  symbols  of  the  ordi 
nary  siie.  Each  of  the  following  aev*n,  reading  down 
ward,  covers  tw«  spaces,'  the  whole  leiug  cv>uniexl  as  two 
columns.  The  thin!  and  fourth  columns,  m  which  the 
characters  are  separate,  are  read  from  left  to  right  ,  twn> 
and  two,  or  by  pairs,  from  tbe  top  downward,  and  \\\* 
fifth  awl  sixth  columns  follow  in  the  same  order,  "- 
v4m?riftin  .-IfrAii^/^v,  pp,  a4^,  a^y, 

For  a  long  time  it  was  tliought  tb«t  a  tnmlatiou  of 
the  characters  on  the  monuments  and  in  the  manuscripts 
of  Yucatan  and  Chiapas  might  throw  some  light  on  tlw 


508  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

ancient  history  of  the  Mayas,  but  this  fond  hope  will 
now  have  to  be  relinquished.  "We  need  not  search  for 
the  facts  of  history,  the  names  of  mighty  kings,  or  the 
dates  of  conquests,"  says  Brinton;  "we  shall  not  find 
them.  Chronometry  we  shall  find,  but  not  chronicles ; 
astronomy  with  astrological  aims ;  rituals,  but  no  records. 
Pre-Columbian  history  will  not  be  reconstructed  from 
them.  This  will  be  a  disappointment  to  many;  but  it 
is  the  conclusion  toward  which  tend  all  the  soundest  in 
vestigations  of  recent  years." — Mayan  Primer,  p.  28. 

THE    AMERICAN    HIEROGLYPHICS. 

(i)  Did  the  Ancient  Americans  Employ  a  Uniform 
System  of  Phonetic  Writing? 

According  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  Reformed 
Egyptian  was  invented  by  Nephi  I.,  and  was  employed 
in  both  Americas.  The  period  of  time  in  which  it  was 
in  use  was  about  one  thousand  years,  and  the  countries 
inhabited  by  those  who  employed  it  were  Peru,  Ecuador, 
Colombia,  Central  America,  Mexico  and  the  United 
States.  But  archaeological  research  discloses  that  the 
ancient  American  tribes  were  not  uniform  in  their  man 
ner  of  writing  and  that  only  those  who  inhabited  Central 
and  Southern  Mexico,  Yucatan  and  Guatemala  had 
progressed  far  enough  in  the  art  to  employ  marks  to 
represent  sounds,  the  writing  of  the  tribes  south  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  and  north  of  the  northern  boundary 
line  of  Mexico  being  purely  ideographic  in  character. 

On  the  absence  of  phonetic  writing  in  Peru,  Ban 
croft  says:  "The  more  ancient  nations  have  left  nothing 
to  compare  with  the  hieroglyphic  tablets  of  Central 
America,  and  the  evidence  is  far  from  satisfactory  that 
they  possessed  any  advanced  art  in  writing." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  792. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  509 

And,  in  speaking  of  the  same  people,  Squier  writes: 
"Fortunately  for  our  knowledge  of  the  people  of  the 
past  ages,  who  never  attained  to  a  written  language, 
they  were  accustomed  to  bury  with  their  dead  the  things 
they  most  regarded  in  life,  and  from  this  we  may  deduce 
something  of  their  modes  of  living,  and  gain  some  idea 
of  their  religious  notions  and  beliefs." — Peru,  p.  73. 

Though  a  few  of  the  Peruvian  tribes  used  picto- 
graphs  to  some  extent,  the  ordinary,  and  almost  uni 
versal,  way  of  carrying  on  communications  among  them 
was  by  the  quipu.  This  instrument  was  a  cord  about 
two  feet  long  from  which  small  threads  were  suspended 
in  the  form  of  a  fringe.  The  cord  and  the  threads  were 
dyed  different  colors  and  were  tied  into  different  knots 
by  which  different  ideas  were  conveyed.  The  color  white 
represented  silver ;  the  color  yellow,  gold ;  or  white  signi 
fied  peace,  and  red,  war.  Notwithstanding  the  quipu 
sufficed  for  several  practical  purposes,  when  the  subject 
of  the  communication  was  known,  it  was  inadequate  in 
the  transmission  of  historical  knowledge  to  succeeding 
generations. 

On  the  absence  of  phonetic  writing  north  of  Mexico 
we  have  the  following : 

"None  of  the  tribes  north  of  Mexico  had  made  the 
discovery  that  marks  can  represent  sounds." — Dellen- 
baugh,  p.  39. 

"Nothing  as  yet  justifies  us  in  supposing  that  the 
Mound  Builders  were  sufficiently  advanced  in  civiliza 
tion  to  have  an  alphabet." — Nadaillac,  p.  166,  Footnote. 

"American  archaeologists  have  been  more  or  less  in 
terested  in  the  question  whether  or  not  the  Mound  Build 
ers  had  a  written  language.  All  the  evidence  is  against 
the  supposition." — MacLean,  p.  90. 

"They" — the  Mound  Builders — "had  seemingly  made 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


FIGURE  15.     INDIAN  P1CTOGRAPHS. 
Permission  U.  S.  Bureau  Ethnology. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  511 

no  approach  to  the  higher  grades  of  hieroglyphic  writ 
ing."—  Bancroft,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  786. 

"No  well  authenticated  mound-builder  hieroglyphics 
have  as  yet  come  to  light." — Short,  p.  419. 

"He" — the  Ohio  Mound  Builder — "failed  to  grasp 
the  idea  of  communication  by  written  characters." — 
Moorehead,  p.  200. 

By  these  statements  the  reader  will  see  that  the 
claim  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  that  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  employed  a  uniform  phonetic  system  of  writing 
throughout  both  North  and  South  America,  is  not  true. 

(2)  The  Character  of  American  Hieroglyphics — Are 
They  Alphabetic? 

The  assertion  of  Mr.  Kelley,  that  the  ancient  Amer 
icans  employed  an  alphabet,  now  demands  our  attention. 
That  the  ancient  Central  Americans  and  Mexicans  had 
developed  their  graphic  systems  so  far  as  to  use  char 
acters  to  represent  sounds  many  of  the  best  students  of 
American  archaeology  believe,  but  that  they  had  ad 
vanced  so  far  as  to  use  alphabets  like  the  Egyptian, 
Greek,  Hebrew  and  Roman  alphabets,  is  not  sustained 
by  a  single  fact  which  has  been  brought  to  light. 

All  that  can  be  said  for  the  phonetic  element  in  the 
Mexican  system  of  writing  is  comprised  in  this  extract 
from  Brinton :  "As  I  have  observed,  the  native  genius 
had  not  arrived  at  a  complete  analysis  of  the  phonetic 
elements  of  the  language ;  but  it  was  distinctly  progress 
ing  in  that  direction.  Of  the  five  vowels  and  fourteen 
consonants  which  make  up  the  Nahuatl  alphabet,  three 
vowels  certainly,  and  probably  three  consonants,  had 
reached  the  stage  where  they  were  often  expressed  as 
simple  letters  by  the  method  above  described.  The 
vowels  were  a,  for  which  the  sign  was  atl,  water ;  e 
represented  by  a  bean,  etl;  and  o  by  a  footprint,  or 


512  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

path,  otli;  the  consonants  were  p,  represented  either  by 
a  flag,  pan,  or  a  mat,  petl;  t,  by  a  stone,  tetl,  or  the  lips, 
tentli;  and  s,  by  a  lancet,  £0.  These  are,  however,  ex 
ceptions.  Most  of  the  Nahuatl  phonetics  were  syllabic, 
sometimes  one,  sometimes  two  syllables  of  the  name  of 
the  object  being  employed.  When  the  whole  name  of  an 
object  or  most  of  it  was  used  as  a  phonetic  value,  the 
script  remains  truly  phonetic,  but  becomes  of  the  nature 
of  a  rebus,  and  this  is  the  character  of  most  of  the  pho 
netic  Mexican  writing." — Essays  of  an  Americanist,  pp. 
206,  207. 

But  the  fact  that  the  Mexicans  employed  signs  for 
the  sounds  of  a,  e,  o  and  possibly  for  p,  t  and  z  does  not 
necessarily  prove  that  these  signs  were  alphabetic,  for 
the  sounds  a,  e,  o,  p,  t  and  z  are  sometimes  syllabic 
sounds,  as  in  a-sleep,  e-lope,  o-bey,  pe-culiar,  te-nacious 
and  ze-bra.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  lancet,  said 
to  be  the  sign  for  z,  stands  for  the  syllable  zo  in  the 
name  Mo-quah-zo-ma,  Montezuma.  But  be  this  as  it 
may,  as  the  Mexican  phonetics  are  mingled  with  symbols 
and  ideograms  which  far  exceed  them  in  number,  it  can 
be  stated  without  reserve  that  they  had  not  progressed 
far  beyond  the  ideographic  stage.  And  this  refutes 
Apostle  Kelley's  absurd  claim  that  the  ancient  inhab 
itants  of  Mexico,  and  the  rest  of  the  New  World,  de 
rived  their  alphabet  "from  the  old  original  alphabet, 
from  which  all  the  alphabets  of  modern  Europe  were 
derived." 

The  writing  of  the  Mayas,  though  further  advanced 
than  that  of  the  Mexicans,  had  not  reached  the  alpha 
betic  stage.  Those  who  have  made  it  a  special  study 
may  be  divided  into  three  classes :  First,  those  who  main 
tain  that  it  is  wholly  or  mainly  ideographic ;  secondly, 
those  who  consider  it  chiefly  phonetic ;  and,  thirdly,  those 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


513 


who  regard  it  as  mainly  ideographic,  but  who  think  that 
it  is  occasionally  phonetic.  To  the  first  class  belong  the 
German  writers,  Forsteinann,  Schellhas  and  Seler;  to 
the  second,  the  French  writers,  De  Bourbourg,  De  Rosny 
and  De  Charency,  with  such  American  investigators  as 
Thomas,  Cresson  and  Le  Plongeon ;  and  to  the  third  that 
able  Americanist,  Dr.  D.  G.  Brinton. 

Though  a  number  of  alphabets  have  been  constructed 
by  different  students  of  this  language,  none  of  them  have 
proved  to  be  of  much  value  to  modern  investigators. 
Landa's  was  the  first  and  was  constructed  in  1570.  In 
1883  his  alphabet  was  extended  by  De  Bourbourg  and 
De  Rosny,  who  defined  twenty-nine  letters,  with  numer 
ous  variants,  from  the  Codices  and  the  inscriptions.  In 
1885  Dr.  Le  Plongeon  published  his  "Ancient  Maya  Hier 
atic  Alphabet  According  to  Mural  Inscriptions,"  which 
contains  twenty-three  letters  with  variants.  Dr.  H.  T. 
Cresson  also  attempted  to  reduce  the  Maya  hieroglyphics 
to  an  alphabet.  "His  theory,"  says  Brinton,  "was  that 
the  glyphs  stood  for  the  names  of  pictures  worn  down 
to  a  single  phonetic  element,  alphabetic  or  syllabic.  This 
element  he  conceived  was  consonantal,  to  be  read  with 
any  vowel,  either  prefixed  or  suffixed ;  and  the  consonant 
was  permutable  with  any  of  its  class,  as  a  lingual,  palatal, 
etc." — Mayan  Primer,  p.  15.  Besides  these,  De  la  Roche 
foucauld's  alphabet  of  twenty-seven  letters  appeared  in 
1888  and  that  of  Thomas,  with  twenty  characters,  in 
1893.  Brinton  pronounces  the  former  fanciful  and  says 
of  the  latter:  "Aside  from  the  doubtful  character  of 
many  of  his  analyses,  the  fact  that  this  'key'  has  wholly 
failed  to  add  any  tangible,  valuable  addition  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  inscriptions  is  enough  to  show  its 
uselessness ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  all  the  attempts 
mentioned," — Ibid,  p.  17. 


514  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Latter-day  Saints  are  especially  interested  in  Le  Plon- 
geon's  "Ancient  Maya  Hieratic  Alphabet,"  because  many 
of  its  characters  are  plainly  identical  with  characters  in 
the  alphabet  of  the  Egyptians,  and  publish  it  side  by  side 
with  the  Egyptian  alphabet  in  the  Appendix  to  their 
"Report  of  the  Committee  on  American  Archaeology." 
They  believe  that  this  alphabet  settles  the  question  that 
the  ancient  Americans  employed  the  Reformed  Egyptian 
writing  as  the  Book  of  Mormon  declares.  In  an  article, 
"Book  of  Mormon  Characters,"  published  first  in  Zion's 
Ensign,  and  afterwards  in  the  Evening  and  Morning 
Star,  of  Independence,  Missouri,  for  February,  1907, 
the  writer,  Mr.  Fred  B.  Farr,  says :  "There  is  much  to 
substantiate  the  belief  that  this  Reformed  Egyptian  with 
which  the  plates  were  inscribed  was  of  a  phonetic  char 
acter,  or  like  shorthand.  The  hieratic  writings  of  the 
Egyptians  was  of  this  nature,  and  we  are  informed  by 
Professor  Le  Plongeon  and  others  that  the  writings  of 
the  ancient  people  of  this  country  bear  a  strong  re 
semblance  to  that  class." 

Now  I  frankly  concede  that  if  Dr.  Le  Plongeon's 
alphabet  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the  mysteries  of  Palen- 
que  and  Chichen  Itza,  the  conclusion  that  the  ancient 
Mayas  employed  the  Egyptian  alphabet  logically  follows, 
for  the  two  alphabets,  as  they  appear  in  the  "Report  of 
the  Committee  on  American  Archaeology,"  are  identical 
in  most  of  their  signs.  But  has  research  corroborated 
Le  Plongeon  and  established  the  correctness  of  his  alpha 
bet  as  Mormons  try  to  make  their  readers  believe?  It 
most  emphatically  has  not.  Le  Plongeon's  alphabet  was 
first  published  in  the  supplement  to  the  Scientific  Ameri 
can  of  January,  1885,  and  afterwards,  I  believe,  in  his 
"Sacred  Mysteries  of  the  Mayas."  Yet,  notwithstanding 
it  has  been  before  the  scholarship  of  the  world  for  twen- 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


515 


ty-three  years,  the  hieroglyphical  sphinx  has  not  yet 
spoken  and  our  Americanists  are  still  at  work  trying 
to  solve  the  riddle  of  the  past.1  But  Mormons  are  will 
fully  blind  to  this  significant  fact. 

Rejecting,  as  most  students  have  done,  the  theory 
that  the  Maya  writing  is  alphabetic,  we  adopt  the  theory 
that  the  phonetic  elements  which  it  contains  are  purely 
syllabic  and  that  these  are  used  in  connection  with  sym 
bols  and  ideographs  which  in  no  way  stand  for  the  sound 
of  the  name  of  the  thing  they  are  intended  to  represent. 

Of  the  character  of  the  Maya  writing,  Brinton 
speaks  as  follows :  "We  do  not  find  a  developed  pho 
netic  system,  and  yet  one  more  than  pictographic.  The 
figures  are  combinations  of  symbols,  ideograms  and 
phonetic  equivalents,  the  last  mentioned  being  in  suffi 
ciently  large  proportion  to  render  some  knowledge  of 
the  Maya  language  necessary  to  an  interpretation  of  the 
records." — Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  26. 

Dr.  Schellhas  gives  this  as  his  decision  on  the  char 
acter  of  the  Maya  hieroglyphs:  "The  Maya  writing  is 
ideographic  in  principle,  and  probably  avails  itself,  in 
order  to  complete  its  ideographic  hieroglyphs,  of  a  num 
ber  of  fixed  phonetic  signs." — Essays  of  an  Americanist, 
p.  200. 

And  Prof.  Cyrus  Thomas  says:  "As  frequent  allusion 
is  made  herein  to  the  phoneticism  or  phonetic  value  of 

1  So  far  has  Le  Plongeon's  "Maya  Hieratic  Alphabet"  dropped  out  of 
sight  that,  although  I  placed  an  order  with  two  of  the  largest  publishing- 
houses  in  the  country,  I  was  not  able  to  obtain  a  copy,  either  new  or 
second-hand,  of  his  "Sacred  Mysteries,"  in  which  it  is  explained.  One 
of  these  publishing-houses  informed  me  that  while  it  was  out  of  print,  a 
second-hand  copy  might  be  picked  up  for  $18  or  $20.  In  reply  I  authorized 
them  to  get  me  a  copy,  if  possible.  Later  they  wrote  that  although  they 
had  made  the  effort  a  copy  could  not  be  found.  The  other  publishing- 
house  simply  notified  me  that  the  book  was  out  of  print  and  not  obtainable. 
If  this  alphabet  is  the  key  that  unlocks  the  mysteries  of  the  Maya  hiero 
glyphics,  why  has  it  dropped  so  quickly  and-  completely  out  of  sight? 


5i6  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

the  written  characters  or  hieroglyphs,  it  is  proper  that 
the  writer's  position  on  this  point  should  be  clearly  under 
stood.  He  does  not  claim  that  the  Maya  scribes  had 
reached  that  advanced  stage  where  they  could  indicate 
each  letter-sou»nd  by  a  glyph  or  symbol.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  thinks  a  symbol,  probably  derived  in  most  cases 
from  an  older  method  of  picture-writing,  was  selected 
because  the  name  or  word  it  represented  had  as  its  chief 
phonetic  element  a  certain  consonant  sound  or  syllable. 
If  this  consonant  element  were  b,  the  symbol  would  be 
used  where  b  was  the  prominent  consonant  element  of  the 
word  to  be  indicated,  no  reference,  however,  to  its  orig 
inal  signification  being  necessarily  retained.  Thus  the 
symbol  for  cab,  'earth,'  might  be  used  in  writing  Caban, 
a  day  name,  or  cabil,  'honey/  because  cab  is  their  chief 
phonetic  element. 

"In  a  previous  work  I  have  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  characters  are  to  a  certain  extent  phonetic — are  not 
true  alphabetic  signs,  but  syllabic.  And  at  the  same 
time  I  expressed  the  opinion  that  even  this  definition  did 
not  hold  true  of  all,  as  some  were  apparently  ideo 
graphic,  while  others  were  simply  abbreviated  pictorial 
representations." — Sixteenth  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  p.  205. 

The  syllabic  signs  in  the  Mexican  and  Mayan  writing 
differ,  however,  in  an  important  respect  from  the  syllabic 
signs  on  the  bricks  and  tablets  of  Assyria.  In  the  written 
language  of  the  Assyrians  the  syllabic  signs  had  lost 
their  pictorial  character  and  were  written  with  wedges 
arranged  in  various  ways ;  in  the  written  languages  of 
the  Mexicans  and  Mayas  the  syllabic  signs  still  retained 
their  pictorial  character,  being  the  pictures  of  things  the 
sounds  of  whose  names,  or  of  certain  syllables  of  whose 
names,  when  put  together,  made  the  sound  of  the  word 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  517 

represented.  A  simple  illustration  of  this  principle  is 
found  in  the  name  of  the  Aztec  king,  Montezuma.  This 
name  is  written  with  a  mouse-trap  and  an  eagle's  head 
transfixed  with  a  lancet  and  surmounted  with  a  human 
hand.  In  the  Nahuatl  language  the  word  for  mouse-trap 
is  montli,  from  which  we  have  the  syllable  mon  or  mo;  the 
word  for  eagle  is  quauhtli,  from  which  we  have  quauh; 
the  word  for  lancet  is  zo,  from  which  we  have  the  syllable 
zo;  and  the  word  for  hand  is  maitl,  from  which  we  have 
ma.  Putting  these  syllables,  each  of  which  is  repre 
sented  by  a  pictograph,  together  and  we  have  Mo-quauh- 
zo-ma,  the  name  of  the  Mexican  chief.  This  principle 
is  further  illustrated  by  the  device  which  the  English 
gallant  had  embroidered  on  his  gow«n  with  which  to  show 
his  devotion  to  the  lady  of  his  heart,  Rose  Hill.  It  con 
sisted  of  the  pictures  of  a  rose,  a  hill,  an  eye,  a  loaf  of 
bread  and  a  well,  which  being  interpreted  is,  "Rose  Hill 
I  love  well."  Another  illustration  of  this  principle  is 
in  the  word  "chairman,"  which  in  rebus-writing  of  our 
day  would  be  written  with  pictures  of  a  chair  and  a  man. 

To  this  kind  of  ancient  American  writing  Brintor 
gives  the  name  of  ikonomatic  writing,  from  the  Greek 
eikon,  a  figure  or  image,  and  onoma,  a  name.  This  ij 
the  highest  stage  that  any  system  in  America  reached, 
and  Apostle  Kelley's  claim,  made  without  any  prooi 
whatever,  that  the  ancient  Americans  employed  an  al 
phabet,  falls  to  the  ground.  In  all  of  their  phonetic 
writing  they  wrote  with  syllables,  not  with  letters,  while 
the  greater  part  of  their  signs  were  pure  ideographs 
having  no  phonetic  value  whatever. 

(3)  The  Origin  of  American  Hieroglyphics — Are 
They  of  Exotic  Origin? 

Apostle  Kelley  asserts  that  the  ancient  Americans 
had  an  alphabet,  not  only,  but  also  that  this  alrhabet  was 


5i8  CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED 

"composed  of  characters  identical  with  and  resembling 
the  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian,  Greek,  Hebrew  and 
Roman  letters,  with  symbols,  circles  and  pictorial  em 
blems."  And  Apostle  J.  R.  Lambert,  of  the  same  church, 
in  his  "Objections  to  the  Book  of  Mormon  and  Book  of 
Doctrine  and  Covenants  Answered  and  Refuted,"  p.  71, 
says :  "Since  it  is  now  admitted  that  the  aborigines  used 
Egyptian,  we  are  under  no  obligations  to  prove  it ;  and 
as  the  Book  of  Mormon  claims  to  be  a  history  of  the 
aborigines  of  America,  we  thus  establish  harmony  be 
tween  the  claims  of  the  book  and  the  facts  in  the  case, 
and  it  remains  for  our  opponents  to  prove  that  whoever 
wrote  the  historical  part  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  learned 
all  that  he  knew  about  the  use  of  Reformed  Egyptian 
from  the  antiquarian  discoveries  which  had  been  made 
before  the  Book  of  Mormon  was  written." 

I  can  not  refrain  from  saying  that  these  gentlemen, 
if  they  had  given  the  subject  of  American  writing  the 
study  which  it  deserves,  stated  what  they  positively  knew 
was  not  true.  The  ancient  Americans  did  not  use  char 
acters  identical  with  Egyptian,  Chaldean,  Assyrian, 
Greek,  Hebrew  and  Roman  characters,  neither  is  it  con 
ceded  that  they  used  Reformed  Egyptian  or  any  other 
kind  of  Egyptian,  the  theories  of  the  Mormon  witnesses, 
Delafield  and  Le  Plongeon,  being  disproved  by  both  time 
and  research.  The  key  that  has  unlocked  the  mysteries 
of  ancient  Egypt  does  not  fit  the  lock  which  holds  the 
door  to  the  secrets  of  ancient  America.  If  the  ancient 
Americans  employed  letters  from  the  alphabets  of  the 
Old  World,  why  have  they  not  been  found  engraved  on 
their  monuments  and  inscribed  in  their  manuscripts? 
Why  have  their  monuments  not  been  made  to  speak  by 
the  Egyptologist  and  Assyriologist?  There  is  but  one 
answer  to  these  questions,  and  that  is  that  the  written 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  519 

languages  of  America  possess  a  character  peculiar  to 
themselves,  and  that  they  were  not  derived  from  the 
languages  of  the  Old  World.  In  opposition  to  the  ab 
surd  claims  of  Messrs.  Kelley  and  Lambert,  let  me  place 
the  statements  of  men  who  are  authorities  in  this  branch 
of  American  archseology. 

"The  American  hieroglyphics  contain  no  element  to 
prove  their  foreign  origin,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  look 
upon  them  as  other  than  the  result  of  original  native  de 
velopment." — Bancroft,  Vol.  II.,  p.  551. 

"Notwithstanding  the  oft-repeated  assertion  that  a 
resemblance  between  Egyptian  and  Maya  hieroglyphics 
exists,  no  one  of  the  Egyptologists  so  successful  in  their 
chosen  field  has  been  able  to  decipher  the  Maya  writing." 
— Short,  p.  418. 

"So  far  as  now  understood,  there  is  no  relationship 
between  any  kind  of  Amerindian  writing  and  that  of 
other  races.  Like  everything  else  pertaining  to  the 
Amerind  people,  the  development  appears  to  have  been 
purely  indigenous." — Dellenbaugh,  p.  80. 

The  Mayas  attributed  the  invention  of  their  writing 
to  Zamna  and  to  a  time  after  they  had  become  settled 
in  Central  America.  "It  is  to  Zamna  that  the  Yucatecs 
ascribed  all  their  progress ;  tradition  attributes  to  him 
the  invention  of  hieroglyphic  writing,  and  he  was  the 
first  to  teach  the  people  to  give  a  name  to  men  and  to 
things." — Prehistoric  America,  p.  348. 

And  Thomas  thinks  that  the  Mayan  system  was  de 
veloped  out  of  a  primitive  system  of  picture-writing. 
He  says:  "The  more  I  study  these  characters  the 
stronger  becomes  the  conviction  that  they  have  grown 
out  of  a  pictographic  system  similar  to  that  common 
among  the  Indians  of  North  America." — Discovery  of 
America,  by  Fiske,  Vol.  I.,  p.  132,  Footnote. 


#0  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

(4)   The  Age  of  the  American  Hieroglyphics. 

On  the  age  of  the  hieroglyphical  systems  of  the  Mex 
icans  and  Mayas  but  little  can  be  said.  There  are  a  few 
facts,  however,  which  help  us  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  as 
to  the  approximate  time  in  which  these  nations  began 
their  use.  I  think  that  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  there  is 
nothing  to  warrant  the  opinion  that  they  antedate  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  nor  that  they  were  invented  by 
a  'Vanished  race"  which  preceded  the  advent  of  the 
Mexican  and  Central  American  tribes,  for  but  few  archae 
ologists  will  any  longer  claim  for  the  ancient  cities  of 
these  countries  a  greater  antiquity  than  nineteen  hundred 
years  and  "vanished  races"  no  longer  hover  on  the 
horizon  of  pre-Columbian  history. 

The  Maya  writing  was  certainly  invented  after  the 
migration  of  that  people  from  the  north,  for  the  Huas- 
tecs,  the  Mayan  tribe  which  broke  off  in  the  migration 
southward,  have  never  practiced  it  and  it  bears  no  rela 
tionship  whatever  to  the  Mexican  system.  This  would 
seem  to  confine  its  origin  and  development  wholly  to 
Central  America.  And  this  is  fully  in  accord  with  the 
tradition  of  the  Mayas  already  given  that  Zamna  was 
the  inventor  of  their  hieroglyphics.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  just  as  clearly  established  that  the  hieroglyphics 
were  invented  before  the  Mayas  entered  Yucatan,  for 
they  are  found  engraved  on  the  monuments  of  Palenque 
and  neighboring  cities  which  were  built  before  the  erec 
tion  of  the  Yucatec  cities.  This  evidence  seems  to  indi 
cate  that  the  Mayan  hieroglyphical  system  reached  its 
highest  stage  after  the  migration  from  the  north,  but  be 
fore  the  settlement  of  Yucatan,  which,  I  think,  would 
establish  its  invention  at  sometime  between  i  A.  D.  and 
400  A.  D. 

On  the  antiquity  of  the  Mayan  hieroglyphics  Nadail- 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  521 

lac  says:  "The  myths  and  traditions  that  have  been  col 
lected  may  date  back  to  a  time  before  the  Christian  era, 
but  the  hieroglyphics  are  certainly  not  so  old." — Pre 
historic  America,  pp.  260,  261. 

Mexican  writing,  without  question,  is  not  as  old  as 
the  Mayan.  Even  if  we  go  by  tradition  alone  we  can 
not  date  its  invention  beyond  the  sixth  century  of  our 
era,  and  the  probabilities  are  that  it  is  not  so  old. 

THE   "CARACTORS." 

Joseph  Smith  says  that  in  the  month  of  February, 
1828,  he  copied  a  number  of  characters  from  the  plates, 
part  of  which  he  translated,  and  sent  them  by  Martin 
Harris  to  Prof.  Charles  Anthon  and  Dr.  Samuel  Mitchell, 
of  New  York,  for  their  examination.  The  characters 
which  Smith  claims  were  not  translated  may  be  seen  in 
Figure  16. 

The  account  of  Harris  as  to  what  took  place  at  New 
York  is  as  follows:  ''I  went  to  the  city  of  New  York 
and  presented  the  characters  which  had  been  translated, 
with  the  translation  thereof  to  Professor  Anthon,  a 
gentleman  celebrated  for  his  literary  attainments ;  Pro 
fessor  Anthon  stated  that  the  translation  was  correct, 
more  so  than  any  he  had  before  seen  translated  from  the 
Egyptian.  I  then  showed  him  those  which  were  not  yet 
translated,  and  he  said  that  they  were  Egyptian,  Chal- 
daic,  Assyriac  and  Arabic,  and  he  said  that  they  were 
the  true  characters.  He  gave  me  a  certificate  certifying 
to  the  people  of  Palmyra  that  they  were  true  characters, 
and  that  the  translation  of  such  of  them  as  had  been 
translated  was  also  correct.  I  took  the  certificate  and 
put  it  into  my  pocket,  and  was  just  leaving  the  house, 
when  Mr.  Anthon  called  me  back,  and  asked  me  how 
the  young  man  found  out  that  there  were  gold  plates 


$22  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

in  the  place  where  he  found  them.     I  answered  that  an 
angel  of  God  had  revealed  it  unto  him. 

"He  then  said  to  me,  'Let  me  see  that  certificate/  I 
accordingly  took  it  out  of  my  pocket  and  gave  it  to  him, 
when  he  took  it  and  tore  it  to  pieces,  saying  that  there 
was  no  such  thing  now  as  ministering  angels,  and  that 
if  I  would  bring  the  plates  to  him,  he  would  translate 
them.  I  informed  him  that  part  of  the  plates  were  sealed, 
and  that  I  was  forbidden  to  bring  them.  He  replied,  'I 
can  not  read  a  sealed  book.'  I  left  him  and  went  to  Dr. 


FIGURE  16. 

Mitchell,  who  sanctioned  what  Professor  Anthon  had 
said  respecting  both  the  characters  and  the  translation." 

This  account  is  one  of  the  stock-in-trade  arguments 
of  the  Mormons,  who  declare  that  the  visit  of  Harris  to 
Professor  Anthon  and  the  latter's  statement  that  he 
could  not  read  a  sealed  book  are  a  fulfillment  of  Isa. 
29:  ii :  "And  the  vision  of  all  is  become  unto  you  as  the 
words  of  a  book  that  is  sealed,  which  men  deliver  to 
one  that  is  learned,  saying,  Read  this,  I  pray  thee:  and 
he  saith,  I  cannot ;  for  it  is  sealed." 

But  Professor  Anthon  gives  a  very  different  account 
of  his  interview  with  Harris,  in  which  it  does  not  so 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  523 

plainly  appear  that  his  words  are  a  fulfillment  of  the 
prophecy  quoted.  In  a  letter,  dated  at  New  York,  Feb 
ruary  17,  1834,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  from  E.  D. 
Howe,  Esq.,  of  Painesville,  Ohio,  author  of  "History 
of  Mormonism,"  he  says:  "The  whole  story  about  my 
having  pronounced  the  Mormonite  inscription  to  be  'Re 
formed  Egyptian  hieroglyphics'  is  perfectly  false.  Some 
years  ago,  a  plain,  and  apparently  simple-hearted,  farmer 
called  upon  me  with  a  note  from  Dr.  Mitchell,  of  our 
city,  now  deceased,  requesting  me  to  decipher,  if  pos 
sible,  a  paper,  which  the  farmer  would  hand  me,  and 
which  Dr.  M.  confessed  he  had  been  unable  to  under 
stand.  Upon  examining  the  paper  in  question,  I  soon 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  all  a  trick,  perhaps  a 
hoax.  When  I  asked  the  person,  who  brought  it,  how 
he  obtained  the  writing,  he  gave  me,  as  far  as  I  can  now 
recollect,  the  following  account :  A  'gold  book/  consisting 
of  a  number  of  plates  of  gold,  fastened  together  in  the 
shape  of  a  book  by  wires  of  the  same  metal,  had  been 
dug  up  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  along  with  the  book  an  enormous  pair  of  'gold  spec 
tacles!'  These  spectacles  were  so  large,  that,  if  a  person 
attempted  to  look  through  them,  his  two  eyes  would  have 
to  be  turned  towards  one  of  the  glasses  merely,  the  spec 
tacles  in  question  being  altogether  too  large  for  the 
breadth  of  the  human  face.  Whoever  examined  the  plates 
through  the  spectacles,  was  enabled  not  only  to  read 
them,  but  fully  to  understand  their  meaning.  All  this 
knowledge,  however,  was  confined  at  that  time  to  a  young 
man,  who  had  the  trunk  containing  the  book  and  spec 
tacles  in  his  sole  possession.  This  young  man  was  placed 
behind  a  curtain,  in  the  garret  of  a  farmhouse,  and 
being  thus  concealed  from  view,  put  on  the  spectacles 
occasionally,  or,  rather,  looked  through  one  of  the  glasses, 


524  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

deciphered  the  characters  in  the  book,  and,  having  com 
mitted  some  of  them  to  paper,  handed  copies  from  be 
hind  the  curtain,  to  those  who  stood  on  the  outside.  Not 
a  word,  however,  was  said  about  the  plates  having  been 
deciphered  'by  the  gift  of  God.'  Everything,  in  this 
way,  was  effected  by  the  large  pair  of  spectacles.  The 
farmer  added,  that  he  had  been  requested  to  contribute 
a  sum  of  money  towards  the  publication  of  the  'golden 
book,'  the  contents  of  which  would,  as  he  had  been  as 
sured,  produce  an  entire  change  in  the  world  and  save  it 
from  ruin.  So  urgent  had  been  these  solicitations,  that 
he  intended  selling  his  farm  and  handing  over  the 
amount  received  to  those  who  wished  to  publish  the 
plates.  As  a  last  precautionary  step,  however,  he  had  re 
solved  to  come  to  New  York,  and  obtain  the  opinion  of 
the  learned  about  the  meaning  of  the  paper  which  he 
brought  with  him,  and  which  had  been  given  him  as  a 
part  of  the  contents  of  the  book,  although  no  translation 
had  been  furnished  at  the  time  by  the  young  man  with 
the  spectacles.  On  hearing  this  odd  story,  I  changed  my 
opinion  about  the  paper,  and,  instead  of  viewing  it  any 
longer  as  a  hoax  upon  the  learned,  I  began  to  regard  it 
as  part  of  a  scheme  to  cheat  the  farmer  of  his  money, 
and  I  communicated  my  suspicions  to  him,  warning  him 
to  beware  of  rogues.  He  requested  an  opinion  from  me 
in  writing,  which  of  course  I  declined  giving,  and  he  then 
took  his  leave,  carrying  the  paper  with  him.  This  paper 
was  in  fact  a  singular  scrawl.  It  consisted  of  all  kinds 
of  crooked  characters  disposed  in  columns,  and  had  evi 
dently  been  prepared  by  some  person  who  had  before 
him  at  the  time  a  book  containing  various  alphabets. 
Greek  and  Hebrew  letters,  crosses  and  flourishes,  Roman 
letters  inverted  or  placed  sideways,  were  arranged  in 
perpendicular  columns,  and  the  whole  ended  in  a  rude 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  525 

delineation  of  a  circle  divided  into  various  compartments, 
decked  with  various  strange  marks,  and  evidently  copied 
after  the  Mexican  calendar  given  by  Humboldt,  but 
copied  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  betray  the  source  whence 
it  was  derived.  I  am  thus  particular  as  to  the  contents 
of  the  paper,  inasmuch  as  I  have  frequently  conversed 
with  my  friends  on  the  subject,  since  the  Mormonite  ex 
citement  began,  and  well  remember  that  the  paper  con 
tained  anything  else  but  'Egyptian  hieroglyphics.'  Some 
time  after,  the  same  farmer  paid  me  a  second  visit.  He 
brought  with  him  the  golden  book  in  print,  and  offered 
it  to  me  for  sale.  I  declined  purchasing.  He  then  asked 
permission  to  leave  the  book  with  me  for  examination.  I 
declined  receiving  it,  although  his  manner  was  strangely 
urgent.  I  adverted  once  more  to  the  roguery  which  had 
been  in  my  opinion  practiced  upon  him,  and  asked  him 
what  had  become  of  the  gold  plates.  He  informed  me 
that  they  were  in  a  trunk  with  the  large  pair  of  spec 
tacles.  I  advised  him  to  go  to  a  magistrate  and  have  the 
trunk  examined.  He  said  the  'curse  of  God'  would 
come  upon  him  should  he  do  this.  On  my  pressing  him, 
however,  to  pursue  the  course  which  I  had  recommended, 
he  told  me  that  he  would  open  the  trunk,  if  I  would  take 
the  'curse  of  God'  upon  myself.  I  replied  that  I  would 
do  so  with  the  greatest  willingness,  and  would  incur 
every  risk  of  that  nature,  provided  I  could  only  extricate 
him  from  the  grasp  of  rogues.  He  then  left  me. 

"I  have  thus  given  you  a  full  statement  of  all  that  I 
know  respecting  the  origin  of  Mormonism,  and  must 
beg  you,  as  a  personal  favor,  to  publish  this  letter  im 
mediately,  should  you  find  my  name  mentioned  again  by 
these  wretched  fanatics." 

The  points  of  disagreement  between  the  accounts  of 
Harris  and  Anthon  are : 


526  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

(1)  Harris  declares  that  he  called  upon  Anthon  first 
and  afterwards  upon  Mitchell;  Professor  Anthon  claims 
that  he  came  to  him  with  a  note  from  the  Doctor. 

(2)  The  characters,  which  Harris  says  he  submitted 
to  Anthon,  are  arranged  in  horizontal  rows ;  those  which 
Anthon  saw  were  arranged  in  perpendicular  columns. 

(3)  Harris  claims  that  some  of  the  characters  were 
translated;  Anthon  makes  no  mention  of  such  a  trans 
lation. 

(4)  Among  the  characters  which  Anthon  saw  were 
a  number  of  stars  and  half -moons;  these  do  not  appear 
in  the  transcript  which  Mormons  claim  Harris  had. 

( 5 )  Harris  asserts  that  Anthon  gave  him  a  certificate 
"certifying  to  the  people  of  Palmyra  that  they  were  the 
true  characters;"  Anthon  says  that  Harris  requested  his 
opinion  in  writing,  but  that  he  declined  giving  it. 

(6)  Harris  declares  that  Professor  Anthon  said,  "I 
can  not  read  a  sealed  book ;"  Anthon  mentions  no  such 
admission,  and  from  his  condemnation  of  the  characters 
one  would  infer  that  no  such  declaration  was  ever  made. 
And 

(7)  Harris  says  that  Professor  Anthon  pronounced 
the  characters  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic ; 
the  professor  says  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  "hoax," 
and  that  it  consisted  of  distorted   Hebrew,   Greek  and 
Roman  letters,  crosses,  half-moons,  stars  and  flourishes. 

The  case  stands  thus:  Anthon  vs.  Harris.  Which 
will  you  believe?  On  the  one  hand  we  have  a  scholar  of 
acknowledged  ability  and  veracity,  and  on  the  other  an 
ignorant  farmer,  whom  even  the  Mormons  admit  lied 
under  other  circumstances.  This  interview  bears  on  the 
face  of  it  the  marks  of  being  a  cleverly  laid  scheme  to 
fulfill  a  prophecy  which  had  already  been  fulfilled  eigh 
teen  centuries  before. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


527 


(i)  Are  the  "Caractors"  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  As 
syrian  and  Arabic? 

The  question  that  is  raised  by  Professor  Anthon's 
purported  statement  is  not,  "Are  the  'Caractors'  similar 
to  the  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Chaldaic  and  Arabic?"  but, 
"Are  they  identical  with  the  written  characters  of  these 
languages  ?"  Anthon  being  made  to  say  that  they  "were 
Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic"  and  "were 
the  true  characters." 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  see  for  himself  that 
this  claim  of  identity  is  utterly  false,  I  have  prepared 
Figure  17,  which  may  be  compared  with  Figure  16. 
The  Egyptian  characters  in  the  former  I  have  copied 
from  "Egyptian  Language,"  by  Budge;  the  Assyrian 
from  "First  Steps  in  Assyrian,"  by  King;  the  Aramaic 
or  Chaldee  from  the  Hebrew  Bible  and  the  Arabic  from 
Gesenius'  Lexicon.  A  careful  comparison  of  the  two 
cuts  will  reveal  the  fact  that  the  "Caractors"  are  neither 
identical  with  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  Egyptians,  the 
wedge-shape  inscriptions  of  the  Assyrians,  the  block 
letters  of  the  Arameans  nor  the  running  hand  of  the 
Arabians,  and  the  only  reasonable  conclusion  that  the 
intelligent  reader  can  come  to,  in  the  face  of  Anthon's 
denial,  of  ever  having  made  the  statement  attributed  to 
him,  and  these  facts,  is  that  the  statement  attributed  to 
him  is  a  forgery  made  to  fulfill  Isa.  29:  u,  a  prophecy 
which  met  its  fulfillment  more  than  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago.  I  challenge  the  Mormon  Church  to  make 
good  the  claim  that  they  have  flaunted  before  the  Chris 
tian  public  for  seventy-five  years,  that  the  "Caractors" 
are  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic,  and  de 
mand  that  until  they  do  they  refrain  from  using  An 
thon's  purported  statement  further. 


528 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


EGYPT  IAN,  ASSYR  IAN,  ARAMAIC  AND  ARABIC  CHARACTERS 
Egyptian. 


Assyrian. 


-HW  -HP-5F 


Aramaic. 


Aralsic. 


f    uL?  f     CA^ 


f 

/  i 

M     CXy  L> 


FIGURE  17. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  529 

In  his  well-known  work,  "Doctrines  and  Dogmas  of 
Mormonism,"  pp.  261,  262,  Rev.  D.  H.  Bays,  who  for 
twenty-seven  years  was  an  elder  in  the  Reorganized 
Church,  publishes  a  letter  of  explanation  and  inquiry 
concerning  the  "Caractors,"  which  he  had  sent  to  several 
Orientalists,  and  which  reads  as  follows : 

"DEAR  SIR: — I  herewith  inclose  what  purports  to  be 
a  fac-simile  of  the  characters  found  upon  the  gold  plates 
from  which  it  is  claimed  the  Book  of  Mormon  was  trans 
lated.  The  advocates  of  Mormonism  maintain  that  these 
characters  are  'Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic/ 

"So  far  as  I  am  informed,  these  characters  have  never 
been  submitted  to  scholars  of  eminence  for  examination ; 
and  as  the  languages  named  fall  within  your  province, 
including  Egyptology  and  archaeology,  your  professional 
opinion  as  to  their  genuineness  will  be  of  great  value 
to  the  general  reader,  in  determining  the  exact  truth 
with  respect  to  this  remarkable  claim." 

I  have  omitted  from  this  letter,  as  not  being  relevant 
to  the  present  discussion,  four  questions  relating  to  the 
use  of  Egyptian  and  metallic  plates  among  the  Hebrews ; 
the  replies  to  these  questions  will  also  be  omitted  from 
the  letters  of  his  correspondents. 

To  the  inquiry  of  Mr.  Bays,  Pres.  James  B.  An- 
gell,  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  at  Ann  Arbor,  re 
plied  as  follows :  "I  have  submitted  your  letter  and  in- 
closure  to  our  professor  of  Oriental  languages,  who  is 
more  familiar  with  the  subjects  raised  by  your  question 
than  I  am.  He  is  a  man  of  large  learning  in  Semitic 
languages  and  archaeology.  The  substance  of  what  he 
has  to  say  is : 

"  'i.  The  document  which  you  enclose  raises  a  moral 
rather  than  a  linguistic  problem.  A  few  letters  or  signs 
are  noticeable  which  correspond  more  or  less  closely  to 


530  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

the  Aramaic,  sometimes  called  Chaldee  language;  tor 
example,  s,  h,  g,  t,  1,  b,  n.  There  are  no  Assyrian  char 
acters  in  it,  and  the  impression  made  is  that  the  docu 
ment  is  fraudulent/  " 

In  answer  to  the  letter  of  Mr.  Bays,  Charles  H.  S. 
Davis,  M.D.,  Ph.D.,  of  Meriden,  Connecticut,  author  of 
"Ancient  Egypt  in  the  Light  of  Recent  Discoveries," 
and  a  member  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  Ameri 
can  Philological  Society,  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology 
of  London  and  Royal  Archaeological  Institute  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  wrote:  "I  am  familiar  with  Egyp 
tian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic,  and  have  consider 
able  acquaintance  with  all  of  the  Oriental  languages, 
and  I  can  positively  assert  that  there  is  not  a  letter  to  be 
found  in  the  fac-simile  submitted  that  can  be  found  in 
the  alphabet  of  any  Oriental  language,  particularly  of 
those  you  refer  to;  namely,  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  As 
syrian  and  Arabic. 

"A  careful  study  of  the  fac-simile  shows  that  they 
are  characters  put  down  at  random  by  an  ignorant  per 
son — with  no  resemblance  to  anything,  not  even  short 
hand." 

Dr.  Charles  E.  Moldenke,  of  New  York,  said  to  be 
"probably  the  best  Egyptian  scholar  in  the  country,"  re 
plied  to  Mr.  Bays  from  Jerusalem,  Palestine,  December 
27,  1896,  as  follows :  "Your  letter  dated  November  23 
I  have  just  received.  I  will  try  to  answer  your  questions 
as  far  as  I  am  able.  I  believe  the  plates  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon  to  be  a  fraud. 

"In  the  first  place,  it  is  impossible  to  find  in  any  old 
inscription,  'Egyptian,  Arabic,  Chaldaic  and  Assyrian' 
characters  mixed  together.  The  simple  idea  of  finding 
Egyptian  and  Arabic  side  by  side  is  ridiculous  and  im 
possible. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


53i 


"In  the  second  place,  though  some  signs  remind  one 
of  those  of  the  Mesa  Inscription,  yet  none  bear  a  re 
semblance  to  Egyptian  or  Assyrian." 

Although  these  letters  clearly  establish  that  the 
"Caractors"  are  frauds,  Apostle  Heman  C.  Smith,  of 
the  Josephite  Church,  in  his  "Truth  Defended;  or,  A 
Reply  to  Elder  D.  H.  Bays,"  takes  up  the  cudgel  in  their 
defense  and  in  a  weak  and  an  evasive  effort  tries  to  show, 
first,  that  Mr.  Bays  misrepresented  his  church  in  saying 
that  "the  advocates  of  Mormonism  maintain  that  these 
characters  are  'Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Ara 
bic,'  "  and,  secondly,  that  these  letters  do  not  prove  what 
he  tries  to  prove  by  them,  as  they  contradict  one  another. 

In  attempting  to  answer  the  charge  of  Mr.  Bays,  that 
"the  advocates  of  Mormonism  maintain  that  these  char 
acters  are  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic," 
Apostle  Smith  says :  "When  Mr.  Bays  wrote  as  he  says 
he  did  to  certain  linguists  the  following,  he  misrepre 
sented  the  facts:  .  .  . 

"  'The  advocates  of  Mormonism'  have  maintained 
nothing  of  the  kind. 

"All  there  is  to  it  is  that  Martin  Harris  has  been 
quoted  as  saying  that  Professor  Anthon  so  determined 
and  informed  him." — The  Truth  Defended,  p.  31. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Latter-day  Saints 
wish  to  shirk  the  responsibility  of  claiming  that  the 
"Caractors"  are  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Ara 
bic,  especially  when  a  competent  scholar  declares  that 
"there  is  not  a  letter  to  be  found  in  the  fac-simile  sub 
mitted  that  can  be  found  in  the  alphabet  of  any  Oriental 
language."  But  the  unkindest  cut  of  all  is  for  them  to 
try  to  shift  the  responsibility  of  this  claim  to  the 
shoulders  of  Professor  Anthon,  and  that,  too,  when  he 
has  expressly  denied  that  he  ever  said  that  the  transcript 


532  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

he  saw  contained  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  or  was  any 
thing  else  than  a  hoax  and  a  deception. 

//  the  Latter-day  Saints  have  not  maintained,  as 
Apostle  Smith  tries  to  make  his  readers  believe,  that  the 
"Caractors"  are  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic, 
why  have  they  given  Professor  Anthon's  purported  state 
ment  their  unqualified  indorsement  for  the  last  seventy 
years?  And  why  have  they  made  use  of  this  purported 
statement  to  sustain  their  claim  that  the  ancient  Ameri 
cans  employed  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic 
characters?  Apostle  Kelley  in  his  "Presidency  and  Priest 
hood"  commences  Chapter  XL  with  a  quotation  from 
Anthon's  letter  to  Howe,  in  which  it  is  said  that  the 
transcript  contained  "Greek  and  Hebrew  letters,  crosses 
and  flourishes,  Roman  letters  inverted  or  placed  side 
ways,"  and  also  one  from  Anthon's  purported  statement 
to  Harris,  in  which  Anthon  is  made  to  say  that  the 
"Caractors"  are  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Ara 
bic,  and  then  proceeds  to  show  that  in  agreement  with 
these  statements  the  ancient  Americans  did  employ 
Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian,  Arabic,  Greek,  Hebrew 
and  Roman  letters.  He  says,  p.  259:  "Is  there  any 
thing  surprising,  then,  in  the  discovery  of  the  records 
of  these  peoples,  that  they  should  be  found  to  con 
tain  Hebrew,  Greek,  Chaldaic,  Egyptian  and  Arabic 
characters?  Would  it  not  be  more  surprising  if  they 
were  not  found?  Smith  was  right,  then,  in  his  an 
nouncement  that  he  had  discovered  and  had  in  his  pos 
session  the  true  characters  used  in  writing  by  those  pre 
historic  nations,  and  Anthon's  statement  confirms  that  of 
Smith,  as  do  also  the  historical  facts  cited."  If  Mr. 
Kelley  does  not  indorse  both  the  purported  and  the  gen 
uine  statement  of  Professor  Anthon,  that  the  characters 
sent  to  him  were  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian,  Arabic, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  533 

Greek,  Hebrew  and  Roman,  why  does  he  say  that  "An- 
thon's  statement  confirms  that  of  Smith"  that  he  "had 
in  his  possession  the  true  characters,"  which  he  (Kelley) 
claims  were  Hebrew,  Greek,  Chaldaic,  Egyptian  and 
Arabic?  Why  does  he  seek  so  diligently  to  show  that 
the  writings  of  the  ancient  Americans  "would  appear 
very  much  as  set  out  by  Professor  Anthon"?  I  was 
associated  with  the  Mormon  Church  from  my  early 
youth  up  to  my  young  manhood  and  Mr.  Smith  is  the 
first  whom  I  have  ever  heard  deny  that  "the  advocates 
of  Mormonism  maintain  that  these  characters  are  Egyp 
tian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic." 

In  his  effort  to  destroy  the  force  of  the  letters  of  An 
thon,  Angell,  Davis  and  Moldenke,  Apostle  Smith  tries 
to  show  that  they  contradict  one  another.  "This  is  the 
contradictory  mass  that  Mr.  Bays  relies  on  as  evidence 
in  rebuttal.  Mr.  Angell  finds  signs  on  the  fac-simile 
more  or  less  closely  resembling  Chaldee ;  Mr.  Moldenke 
finds  signs  that  remind  one  of  those  on  the  Mesa  In 
scription;  and  Mr.  Anthon  finds  Greek,  Hebrew  and 
Roman  letters;  while  Mr.  Davis  finds  no  resemblance  to 
anything." — The  Truth  Defended,  p.  126. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  disagreement 
between  Anthon  on  the  one  hand  and  Angell,  Davis  and 
Moldenke  on  the  other,  for  they  did  not  see  the  same 
transcript,  that  which  Anthon  saw  containing  letters  ar 
ranged  in  perpendicular  columns,  and  that  which  was 
submitted  to  the  others  containing  characters  arranged 
in  horizontal  rows.  In  the  second  place,  the  divergence 
of  opinion,  to  which  Mr.  Smith  calls  the  attention  of  his 
readers  in  order  to  divert  their  minds  from  the  real 
point  at  issue,  counts  for  nothing,  as  it  is  only  such  as 
may  reasonably  be  expected  when  different  individuals 
view  marks  put  down  at  random  as  the  "Caractors"  are. 


534  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

It  would  be  almost  an  impossibility  to  make  a  mark  with 
out  imitating,  more  or  less  closely,  the  characters  of  some 
written  language,  the  resemblance  being  more  noticeable 
to  some  minds  than  to  others.  To  one  of  these  writers 
the  correspondence  between  some  of  the  "Caractors"  and 
the  Chaldee  is  sufficiently  close  to  be  mentioned ;  to  an 
other  they  bear  no  resemblance  to  anything,  not  even 
shorthand.  In  the  third  place,  these  writers  are  a  unit 
on  the  real  point  at  issue.  They  are  agreed  that  the 
"Caractors"  are  neither  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian 
nor  Arabic,  Angell  stating  that  "the  impression  made  is 
that  the  document  is  fraudulent;"  Davis,  that  "there  is 
not  a  letter  to  be  found  in  the  fac-simile  submitted  that 
can  be  found  in  the  alphabet  of  any  Oriental  language ;" 
and  Moldenke,  that  none  of  the  signs  "bear  a  resem 
blance  to  Egyptian  or  Assyrian."  No  effort  that  Mor- 
monism  may  make  can  vindicate  the  genuineness  of  the 
"Caractors ;"  they  are  neither  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  As 
syrian  nor  Arabic. 

(2)  Are  the  "Caractors"  American? 

Mormons  universally  insist  that  the  characters  said 
to  have  been  submitted  to  Professor  Anthon  were  those 
of  the  official  language  of  the  Nephites,  and  were  in  use 
in  ancient  times  in  both  Americas  from  Peru  on  the 
south  to  the  Great  Lakes  on  the  north.  As  the  ancient 
Americans,  like  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  Assyrians,  were 
in  the  habit  of  inscribing  their  hieroglyphics  on  imperish 
able  materials,  if  the  "Caractors"  are  genuine,  we  may 
expect  to  find  them  engraved  on  the  monuments  of  the 
old  nations  of  the  New  World.  In  order  to  ascertain 
whether  or  not  characters  similar  to  those  said  to  have 
been  submitted  to  Professor  Anthon  have  been  found 
among  the  antiquities  of  America,  I  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  the  secretary  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution: 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  535 

BUCHANAN,  Michigan,  Jan.  15,  1908. 
SECRETARY  SMITHSONIAN  INSTITUTION,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Dear  Sir — Inclosed  you  will  find  a  fac-simile  of  the  "Carac- 
tors"  said  to  have  been  copied  from  the  famous  Palmyra  plates 
by  Joseph  Smith  and  sent  by  him  to  Prof.  Charles  Anthon,  of 
New  York,  in  February,  1828.  Mormons  claim  that  these  "Car- 
actors"  are  "Reformed  Egyptian,"  the  language  of  the  ancient 
inhabitants  of  America,  and  that  Professor  Anthon  pronounced 
them  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  and  Arabic.  Will  you  inform 
me  if  such  characters  have,  to  your  knowledge,  been  found  on 
any  of  the  monuments  or  in  any  of  the  manuscripts  of  ancient 
America?  Yours  truly,  CHARLES  A.  SHOOK. 

To  my  inquiry  I  received  the  following  reply : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Jan.  28,  1908. 
MR.  CHARLES  A.  SHOOK,  Buchanan,  Michigan. 

Dear  Sir — Your  letter  of  January  I5th  has  been  referred  to 
Dr.  I.  M.  Casanowicz,  of  the  Division  of  Historic  Archaeology, 
who  states  that  the  characters  regarding  which  you  make  inquiry 
are  neither  Egyptian  nor  Chaldaic,  Assyrian  nor  Arabic ;  and 
they  have  not  been  found  on  any  American  monument  or  manu 
script.  The  slip  on  which  the 'characters  are  represented  is  re 
turned  herewith.  Very  respectfully  yours, 

R.  RATHBUN, 
Assistant  Secretary  in  charge  of  the  National  Museum. 

If  the  "Caractors"  are  not  Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  As 
syrian  and  Arabic,  and  have  not  been  found  engraved  on 
the  monuments  or  inscribed  in  the  manuscripts  of  ancient 
America,  the  honest  and  intelligent  reader  can  come  to 
no  other  conclusion  than  that  they  are  frauds,  which 
have  been  presented  to  the  public  in  order  to  deceive, 
and  frauds,  too,  which  were  not  beyond  the  ability  of  a 
Smith  and  a  Harris  to  execute. 

Even  the  superficial  observer  who  will  only  casually 
compare  the  "Caractors"  with  the  Maya  writing  (Figures 
18,  19,  20),  the  most  advanced  system  of  ancient  Amer 
ica,  will  not  fail  to  discover  a  difference  between  the  two 
as  great  as  that  which  exists  between  our  own  writing 


536 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


and  that  of  the  Chinese.     The  two  are   fundamentally 
unlike  in,  at  least,  two  apparent  respects. 

In  the  first  place,  the  "Caractors"  are  simple  figures, 
while  the  Maya  glyphs  are  complex  and  are  composed 
of  a  number  of  elements  grouped  together  and  some 
times  surrounded  by  a  rim,  as  in  the  Egyptian  cartouch. 


FIGURE  18.    MAYA  HIEROGLYPHICS  FROM  PALENQUE. 
Permission  U.  S.  Bureau  Ethnology. 

Secondly,  the  "Caractors"  are  not  pictographic  in  any 
sense,  while  the  Maya  glyphs,  or  parts  of  them,  generally 
retain  their  pictographic  character,  being  the  pictures  of 
feet,  hands,  faces,  etc.,  more  or  less  conventionalized. 
Professor  Thomas  remarks  as  follows  upon  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  human  heads:  "In  all  the  Maya  manu 
scripts  we  find  the  custom  of  using  heads  as  symbols,  al 
most,  if  not  quite,  as  often  as  in  the  Mexican  codices. 


CVMORAH   REVISITED 


537 


Not  only  so,  but  in  the  former,  even  in  the  purely  con 
ventional  characters,  we  see  evidences  of  a  desire  to  turn 
every  one  possible  into  the  figure  of  a  head,  a  fact  still 
more  apparent  in  the  monumental  inscriptions." — Third 
Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  p.  64. 


FIGURE  19.     MAYA  HIEROGLYPHICS  FROM  COPAN. 

Nowhere  in  America  have  characters  been  found  re- 
'sembling  those  said  to  have  been  submitted  to  Anthon, 
except  within  the  mound-area  of  the  United  States,  and 
even  there  only  upon  plates  and  tablets  which  are  ac 
knowledged  to  be  archaeological  frauds  by  all  good  ar 
chaeologists.  The  reputation  of  much  of  the  Mormon 


538 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


FIGURE  20. 
Permission  U.  S.  Bu.  Ethno. 


evidence  has  suffered 
greatly  at  the  hands  of 
recent  research,  as  we 
shall  soon  see. 

(3)  The  l<  Car  ac 
tors"  Are,  Many  of 
Them,  Deformed 
English. 

I  n  s  t  e  a  d  of  "Re 
formed  Egyptian" 
many  of  the  "Carac- 
tors"  are  deformed 
English,  as  any  one 
will  observe  who  will 
compare  them  with 
English  letters,  figures 
and  signs.  I  have 
counted  thirty-six  dif- 
f  e  r  e  n  t  characters  in 
the  fac-simile,  some  of 
them  occurring  more 
than  once,  which  are 
either  identical  with, 
or  which  closely  re- 
s  e  m  b  1  e,  the  English. 
Figure  21  will  illus 
trate  this.  The  fact  is 
that  Joseph  Smith,  in 
drawing  the  tran 
script,  employed  dif 
ferent  kinds  and  styles 
of  English  letters, 
changing  a  few  of 
them  to  make  the  im- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


539 


posture  less  observable. 
Latter-day  Saints  are 
very  quick  to  see  a  re 
semblance  between  the 
"Caractors"  and  the 
letters  in  the  Maya 
and  Egyptian  alpha 
bets  of  Le  Plongeon; 
will  they  be  as  quick  to 
see  the  similarity  be 
tween  the  "Caractors" 
and  the  English?  If 
similarity  proves  any 
thing,  it  proves  that 
the  transcript  is  a 
bold,  bare  forgery  and 
one  not  above  the  abil 
ity  of  a  Smith  or  a 
Harris  to  execute. 

MORMON  "COLLATERAL 
EVIDENCE"  FRAUDS. 

From  time  to  time, 
in  different  parts  of 
the  territory  once  in 
habited  by  the  Mound 
Builders,  plates  and 
tablets  have  been 
found  containing  sup- 
posed  hieroglyphical 
writing.  In  some  in 
stances  these  "relics" 
have  been  of  copper, 


Mormon 

English 

Caractors 

Characters 

* 

1 

3 

3 

i? 

V 

y 

6 

^ 

7 

7 

% 

? 

j 

o 

0 

26* 

2 

^ 

5 

1 

A 

A 

* 

A 

^ 

IB 

c 

C 

flD 

D 

f 

6 

V 

? 

K 

#    ; 

/_ 

L 

0 

0 

t> 

t 

U 

U 

ty 

"If 

X 

X 

r) 

= 

FIGURE  21. 


S40  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

but  in  most  they  have  been  of  stone  ingeniously  en 
graved.  Chief  among  these  plates  and  tablets  are  the 
Grave  Creek  Tablet,  said  to  have  been  found  in  the 
large  burial  mound  at  Grave  Creek,  West  Virginia,  in 
1838;  the  Kinderhook  Plates,  found  in  a  mound  at  Kin- 
derhook,  Pike  County,  Illinois,  in  1843  J  the  Newark 
Tablet,  discovered  by  David  Wyrick  near  Newark,  Ohio, 
in  1860;  the  Davenport  Tablets,  taken  from  mounds  near 
Davenport,  Iowa,  in  1877;  an<^  tne  remains  of  a  copper 
musical  instrument,  found  near  Mendon,  Illinois,  in  1888. 

These  plates  and  tablets  are  among  the  choicest  of 
the  evidences  of  Mormonism,  and  Mormon  writers  de 
vote  considerable  space  in  their  works  on  American  ar 
chaeology  to  their  description,  asserting  that  they  estab 
lish  two  of  their  claims:  That  the  Mound  Builders  em 
ployed  a  phonetic  system  of  writing,  and  that  they 
wrote  on  metallic  plates.  Elder  Etzenhouser  writes : 
"The  claim  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  that  the  ancient 
American  nations  had  written  on  metallic  plates,  was 
thought  to  be  its  sure  defeat;  but  plates  and  various 
materials  containing  hieroglyphical  writing  have  since 
been  found  in  such  abundance  that  the  claim  is  now 
fully  sustained." — The  Book  Unsealed,  p.  42.  Follow 
ing  this  he  gives  descriptions  of  the  Kinderhook  Plates, 
the  Mendon  Plates  and  the  Davenport  Tablets,  having 
previously  given  an  account  of  the  Newark  Tablet. 

But  of  the  plates  and  tablets  mentioned  there  is 
not  one  whose  claim  to  genuineness  has  been  positively 
established,  because  of  which  they  are  all  rejected  by 
most  archaeologists,  though  two  of  them  have  found  a 
few  who  have  been  willing  to  come  to  their  defense. 
Some  of  these  "relics"  have  been  made  and  "planted" 
out  of  simple  mischief;  others,  to  establish  certain  re 
ligious  beliefs ;  and  still  others,  to  be  found  and  sold  at 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


541 


a  fabulous  price  as  specimens.  But  these  facts  the  Mor 
mons  persistently  ignore,  repeatedly  referring  to  these 
finds  as  though  there  were  no  question  as  to  their  gen 
uineness. 

The  Grave  Creek  Tablet. 

The  Grave  Creek  Tablet  was  found  on  the  i6th  day 
of  June,  1838,  during  the  excavation  of  the  large  burial 
mound  at  Grave  Creek,  West  Virginia.  At  the  time  of 

its  excavation  this 
mound  was  owned 
by  Mr.  Jesse  Tom- 
linson,  the  entire 
work  of  opening  it, 
which  cost  twenty- 
five  hundred  dol 
lars,  being  under 
the  direction  of  Mr. 
Abelard  B.  Tomlin- 
s  o  n.  At  first  a 
shaft  ten  feet  in 
height  was  sunk 

into  the  mound  upon  the  north  side,  along  the  original 
surface,  to  the  depth  of  in  feet,  at  the  end  of  which 
a  vault  was  discovered  twelve  feet  long  by  eight  wide 
and  seven  high.  This  vault  w.as  formed  by  upright 
timbers  placed  around  the  sides  supporting  others  which 
served  as  a  roof.  The  latter  decaying  away,  a  great  mass 
of  earth  and  stones  had  fallen  into  the  interior.  In  this 
vault  two  skeletons  were  found,  one  of  which  was  sur 
rounded  by  650  shell  beads.  After  this  another  shaft  was 
sunk  into  the  mound  from  the  summit,  and,  at  a  distance 
of  thirty- four  feet  from  the  bottom,  another  chamber  was 
discovered  containing  one  skeleton  surrounded  by  over 


FIGURE  22.     GRAVE  CREEK  TABLET. 


542  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

two  thousand  shell  discs,  two  hundred  pieces  of  mica, 
seventeen  bone  beads  and  copper  bracelets  and  rings 
weighing  seventeen  ounces.  It  was  in  this  vault  that  the 
tablet  mentioned  is  said  to  have  been  found. 

The  Grave  Creek  Tablet  is  described  as  "an  oval  disc 
of  white  sandstone  nearly  circular  in  form,  about  three- 
fourths  of  an  inch  thick,  and  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diam 
eter." — The  Mound  Builders,  p.  91.  On  one  of  its  sides 
were  engraved  three  lines  of  "characters,"  twenty-two 
in  all,  and  a  peculiar  symbol  formed  of  a  naked  sword 
and  a  human  head. 

Many  have  been  the  attempts  to  decipher  the  sup 
posed  hieroglyphics  on  this  tablet.  One  scholar  found 
among  them  four  characters  which  he  claimed  were  an 
cient  Greek;  another  claimed  that  four  were  Etruscan; 
five  were  declared  to  be  Runic;  six,  ancient  Gaelic; 
seven,  old  Erse ;  ten,  Phenician ;  fourteen,  old  British ; 
and  sixteen,  Celtiberic.  M.  Maurice  Schwab,  in  1857, 
translated  the  inscription  to  read:  "The  Chief  of  Emi 
gration  who  reached  these  places  (or  this  island)  has 
fixed  these  statutes  forever."  At  a  conference  of  Amer 
icanists  held  at  Nancy,  in  1875,  M.  Levy  Bing  reported 
that  the  inscription  contained  twenty-three  Canaanite 
letters  which  he  translated  as  follows:  "What  thou  say- 
est,  thou  dost  impose  it,  thou  shinest  in  thy  impetuous 
clan  and  rapid  chamois."  And  M.  Oppert,  to  give  addi 
tional  variety,  translated  it :  "The  grave  of  one  who  was 
assassinated  here.  May  God  to  avenge  him  strike  his 
murderer,  cutting  off  the  hand  of  his  existence." 

But  even  among  those  who  consider  this  tablet  a 
genuine  mound  relic  there  is  a  strong  doubt  as  to  the 
characters  representing  a  written  language.  MacLean, 
who  believes  that  it  was  found  as  stated,  says:  "This 
stone  has  been  given  more  importance  than  it  really 


CUM  OR  AH   REVISITED  543 

merits.  The  inscription  takes  in  too  wide  a  range  of 
alphabetical  characters  to  represent  one  distinctive  lan 
guage.  If  it  does  represent  a  language,  then  inscriptions 
containing  similar  characters  would  have  been  found  in 
different  localities.  If,  in  reality,  it  does  represent  a 
language,  then  the  Mound  Builders  must  be  placed 
higher  in  the  scale  of  civilization  than  any  other  nation 
has  ever  attained  under  similar  conditions.  That  the 
stone  or  tablet  was  deemed  of  some  importance  by  the 
owner  is  proved  from  the  fact  of  its  having  been  en 
tombed  with  him.  It  may  have  possessed,  to  him,  some 
mysterious  importance  in  his  journey  to  the  future  state 
of  existence ;  and  hence  a  charm  to  protect  him  from 
the  evil  influences  that  might  beset  him." — The  Mound 
Builders,  p.  94. 

If,  then,  this  stone  is  genuine,  it  may  have  been  in 
scribed  by  the  hand  of  an  European  and  buried  in  the 
mound  after  1492,  as  there  is  a  strong  probability  that 
the  mound  is  of  comparatively  recent  erection ;  or  it  may 
have  been  engraved  by  an  American  Indian  without  any 
reference  to  an  alphabet  and  without  any  intention  of 
conveying  an  idea  phonetically,  the  marks  being  simply 
put  down  at  random  and  the  whole  used  as  an  amulet  or 
charm.  Before  this  tablet  can  be  made  to  do  service  as 
evidence  that  the  Mound  Builders  employed  an  alphabet 
it  must  be  proved  that  the  characters  or  marks  are  alpha 
betic,  and  this  can  not  be  done. 

Elder  Phillips  tells  us  that  "some  of  the  characters 
on  this  tablet  resemble  Book  of  Mormon  characters  tran 
scribed  by  Joseph  Smith." — Book  of  Mormon  Verified, 
p.  34.  But  this  proves  nothing,  as  some  of  them  more 
or  less  closely  resemble  the  English ;  for  instance,  the 
letters  A,  D,  T  and  X  and  the  figures  i,  4  and  8.  This 
shows  the  fallacy  of  such  an  argument. 


544  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

But  there  are  a  number  of  reasons  for  believing  this 
tablet  to  be  a  fraud 

In  the  first  place,  its  anomalous  character  would  seem 
to  prove  it  such.  "Science  and  civilization,"  says  Dr. 
Haven,  "do  not  leave  solitary  monuments,"  and  if  the 
Mound  Builders  had  possessed  a  written  language  we 
should  find  more  evidences  of  it  than  a  few  characters 
carved  upon  a  single  piece  of  sandstone.  Says  Professor 
Thomas :  "The  folly  of  relying  upon  such  relics  as  this 
Grave  Creek  Tablet  as  evidence  of  a  written  language  is 
apparent  from  the  above  conclusions.  That  Schoolcraft 
and  other  savants  mentioned  could  have  believed  the  in 
scription  to  have  been  alphabetic,  and  a  genuine  mound- 
builder's  relic,  and  yet  made  up  of  several  alphabets, 
would  be  inconceivable  but  for  the  undeniable  evidence. 
This  simple  fact  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  cast  it  aside  as 
unworthy  of  consideration.  However,  it  may  be  added 
that  since  Dr.  Daniel  Wilson's  sharp  criticism,  and  Pro 
fessor  Reed's  critical  examination  of  the  evidence,  this 
relic  is  discarded  by  most  archaeologists." — Twelfth 
Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p.  632. 

Again,  the  contention  among  those  who  excavated 
the  mound  in  regard  to  who  found  it  would  seem  to  bring 
it  further  into  disrepute.  Mr.  A.  B.  Tomlinson,  who 
directed  the  work,  declares :  "I  removed  it  with  my  own 
hands."  And  Mr.  P.  B.  Catlett,  who  did  the  brickwork, 
just  as  strongly  declares:  "I  was  the  man  who  found  the 
stone."  Besides  this,  a  report  current  soon  after  the  find 
ing  of  the  tablet  that  it  had  been  manufactured  by  one 
David  Gatewood,  and  dropped  into  the  excavation  as  a 
hoax,  has  also  done  much  to  weaken  the  evidence  of  its 
genuineness  in  the  minds  of  most  archaeologists. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  the  tablet  is  pretty  gen 
erally  thought  to  be  fraudulent.  Colonel  Whittlesey  de- 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  545 

clares  that  it  "is  now  universally  regarded  by  archaeolo 
gists  as  a  fraud." — Archaeological  Frauds,  No.  33. 
Short  says :  'The  'Grave  Creek  Mound  Tablet'  we  be 
lieve  is  now  shown  unquestionably  to  be  an  archaeological 
fraud." — North  Americans  of  Antiquity,  p.  419.  Foster 
says:  "The  alphabetical  characters  inscribed  on  the 
'Grave  Creek  Stone/  and  the  'Huly  3  tone  of  Newark' 
with  its  Hebrew  letters,  which  have  called  out  from 
philologists  a  wonderful  amount  of  learning,  one  is  dis 
posed  involuntarily  to  associate  with  the  famous  stone 
which  served  as  the  basis  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  fame." — 
Prehistoric  Races,  p.  400.  While  Brinton,  after  mention 
ing  the  graphic  systems  of  the  Mexicans  and  Mayas,  the 
pictographs  of  the  Panos,  the  quipu  of  the  Peruvians 
and  the  wampum  and  mnemonic  aids  of  other  American 
tribes,  remarks :  "This  exhausts  the  list.  All  other 
methods  of  writing,  the  hieroglyphs  of  the  Micmacs  of 
Acadia,  the  syllabic  alphabet  of  the  Cherokees,  the  pre 
tended  traces  of  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Celtiberic  letters 
which  have  from  time  to  time  been  brought  to  the  notice 
of  the  public,  have  been  without  exception  the  products 
of  foreign  civilization  or  simply  frauds." — Myths,  p.  28. 
When  Mormon  archaeologists  have  established  the 
genuineness  of  the  Grave  Creek  Tablet  it  will  then  be 
time  for  them  to  discuss  the  close  similarity  of  its  char 
acters  to  the  "Caractors"  of  Joseph  Smith's  transcript. 

The  Kinderhook  Plates. 

The  notorious  Kinderhook  Plates  were  found  in  a 
mound  near  Kinderhook,  Pike  County,  Illinois,  April  23, 
1843.  The  account  of  their  finding,  as  written  by  Dr. 
W.  P.  Harris,  and  published  in  the  Mormon  paper,  the 
Times  and  Seasons,  of  Nauvoo,  Illinois,  is  as  follows: 


546  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  "TIMES  AND  SEASONS"  : — 

On  the  i6th  of  April,  1843,  a  respectable  merchant,  by  the 
name  of  Robert  Wiley,  commenced  digging  in  a  large  mound 
near  this  place;  he  excavated  to  a  depth  of  ten  feet  and  came 
to  rock.  About  that  time  the  rain  began  to  fall,  and  he 
abandoned  the  work.  On  the  23d,  he  and  quite  a  number  of  the 
citizens,  with  myself,  repaired  to  the  mound,  and  after  making 
ample  opening,  we  found  plenty  of  rock,  the  most  of  which 
appeared  as  though  it  had  been  strongly  burned;  and  after  re 
moving  full  two  feet  of  said  rock,  we  found  plenty  of  charcoal 
and  ashes,  also  human  bones  that  appeared  as  though  they  had 
been  burned;  and  near  the  eciphalon  a  bundle  was  found  that 
consisted  of  six  plates  of  brass,  of  a  bell-shape,  each  having  a 
hole  near  the  small  end  and  a  ring  through  them  all,  and  clasped 
with  two  clasps.  The  ring  and  clasps  appeared  to  be  iron,  very 
much  oxidated ;  the  plates  first  appeared  to  be  copper,  and  had 
the  appearance  of  being  covered  with  characters.  It  was  agreed 
by  the  company  that  I  should  cleanse  the  plates.  Accordingly, 
I  took  them  to  my  house,  washed  them  with  soap  and  water  and 
a  woolen  cloth ;  but  finding  them  not  yet  cleansed,  I  treated  them 
with  dilute  sulphuric  acid,  which  made  them  perfectly  clean,  on 
which  it  appeared  that  they  were  completely  covered  with  char 
acters,  that  none,  as  yet,  have  been  able  to  read.  Wishing  that 
the  world  might  know  the  hidden  things  as  fast  as  they  come  to 
light,  I  was  induced  to  state  the  facts,  hoping  that  you  would 
give  them  an  insertion  in  your  excellent  paper,  for  we  all  feel 
anxious  to  know  the  true  meaning  of  the  plates,  and  publishing 
the  facts  might  lead  to  the  true  translation.  They  were  found, 
I  judge,  more  than  twelve  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  top  of 
the  mound. 

I  am  most  respectfully,  a  citizen  of  Kinderhook, 

W.  P.  HARRIS,  M.D. 

With  this  letter  appeared  the  following  certificate, 
signed  by  nine  of  the  citizens  of  Kinderhook: 

We,  citizens  of  Kinderhook,  whose  names  are  annexed,  do 
certify  and  declare,  that  on  the  23d  of  April,  1843,  while  exca 
vating  a  large  mound  in  this  vicinity,  Mr.  R.  Wiley  took  from 
said  mound  six  brass  plates,  of  a  bell-shape,  covered  with  ancient 


CUMORAH  REVISITED 


547 


548  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

characters.     Said  plates  were  very  much  oxidated.     The  bands 
and  rings  on  said  plates  mouldered  into  dust  on  a  slight  pressure. 
ROBERT  WILEY,  IRA  S.  CURTIS, 

W.  LONGNECKER,  J.  R.  SHARP, 

GEO.  DECKENSON,  FAYETTE  GRUBB, 

G.  W.  F.  WARD,  W.  P.  HARRIS, 

W.  FUGATE. 

This  account  of  the  finding  of  these  plates  has  ever 
been  put  to  good  use  by  the  Mormons.  Whenever  the 
claim  that  the  Mound  Builders  employed  a  phonetic  sys 
tem  of  writing  is  questioned  it  is  immediately  referred 
to ;  and  from  the  pulpit  and  through  the  press  it  is  flung 
out  as  an  answer  to  the  challenge  to  produce  the  evidence 
that  the  ancient  Americans  wrote  upon  plates  of  metal. 

Within  a  few  days  after  the  finding  of  these  relics 
Joseph  Smith  came  out  with  a  translation  of  them.  In 
his  Diary  for  Monday,  May  i,  1843,  appears  the  fol 
lowing  : 

I  insert  fac-similes  of  the  six  brass  plates  found  near  Kinder- 
hook,  in  Pike  County,  Illinois,  on  April  23,  1843,  by  Mr.  R. 
Wiley  and  others.  While  excavating  a  large  mound  they  found 
a  skeleton  about  six  feet  from  the  surface  of  the  earth,  which 
must  have  stood  nine  feet  high.  The  plates  were  found  on  the 
breast  of  the  skeleton  and  were  covered  on  both  sides  with 
ancient  characters. 

I  have  translated  a  portion  of  them  and  find  they  contain 
the  history  of  the  person  with  whom  they  were  found.  He  was 
a  descendant  of  Ham,  through  the  loins  of  Pharaoh,  King  of 
Egypt,  and  that  he  received  his  kingdom  from  the  Ruler  of 
Heaven  and  Earth. 

Apostle  Kelley  gives  us  a  fac-simile  of  the  twelve 
sides  of  these  six  plates  in  his  "Presidency  and  Priest 
hood,"  and  also  a  long  description  of  them  copied  from 
the  Quincy  Whig,  and  then  adds:  "There  are  characters 
on  these  plates  that  resemble  letters  in  the  Egyptian, 
Greek,  Roman,  Chaldaic  and  Hebrew  alphabets,  and  they 


<  CUMORAH   REVISITED  549 

are  arranged  in  coiumns,  resemolmg  very  much  in  form 
and  arrangement,  according  to  Professor  Anthon,  the 
ones  that  were  submited  to  him  by  Mr.  Harris,  as  copied 
by  Mr.  Smith  from  the  plates  in  his  possession,  from 
which  he  translated  the  'Book  of  Mormon;'  yet  none 
would  be  so  audacious  as  to  presume  to  say  that  they 
had  been  copied  by  some  'bungling'  hand,  with  the  vari 
ous  ancient  alphabets,  as  mentioned,  before  him,  with  a 
view  to  perpetrate  a  fraud." — Presidency  and  Priest 
hood,  p.  283. 

That  the  Kinderhook  Plates  were  engraved  by  a 
"bungling"  hand  some  have  been  just  audacious  enough 
to  presume  to  say.  We  have  on  hand  a  full  confession 
of  the  imposture  by  one  of  those  implicated  in  it,  and  by 
that  confession  we  learn  that  these  plates  were  made  of 
copper,  not  brass,  by  the  "bungling"  hands  of  Bridge 
Whitton,  the  village  blacksmith,  and  that  they  were  en 
graved  by  the  "bungling"  hands  of  two  of  his  confeder 
ates,  Robert  Wiley  and  Wilbur  Fugate,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  hoaxing  the  Mormons. 

Mr.  Wilbur  Fugate,  one  of  the  nine  witnesses  who 
signed  the  certificate  given  above,  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  Mr.  James  T.  Cobb,  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah, 
which  explains  how  and  why  this  fraud  was  perpetrated. 

MOUND  STATION,  Illinois,  June  30,  1879. 
MR.  COBB:— 

I  received  your  letter  in  regard  to  those  plates,  and  will  say 
in  answer  that  they  are  a  humbug,  gotten  up  by  Robert  Wiley, 
Bridge  Whitton  and  myself.  Whitton  is  dead.  I  do  not  know 
whether  Wiley  is  or  not.  None  of  the  nine  persons  who  signed 
the  certificate  knew  the  secret,  except  Wiley  and  I.  We  read 
in  Pratt's  prophecy  that  "Truth  is  yet  to  spring  up  out  of  the 
earth."  We  concluded  to  prove  the  prophecy  by  way  of  a  joke. 
We  soon  made  our  plans  and  executed  them.  Bridge  Whitton 
cut  them  (the  plates)  out  of  some  pieces  of  copper;  Wiley  and 


550 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


I  made  the  hieroglyphics  by  making  impressions  on  beeswax  and 
filling  them  with  acid  and  putting  it  on  the  plates.  When  they 
were  finished  we  put  them  together  with  rust  made  of  nitric  acid, 
old  iron  and  lead,  and  bound  them  with  a  piece  of  hoop  iron, 
covering  them  completely  with  the  rust.  Our  plans  worked 
admirably.  A  certain  Sunday  was  appointed  for  digging.  The 
night  before,  Wiley  went  to  the  mound  where  he  had  previously 
dug  to  the  depth  of  about  eight  feet,  there  being  a  flat  rock 
that  sounded  hollow  beneath,  and  put  them  under  it.  On  the 
following  morning  quite  a  number  of  citizens  were  there  to 
assist  in  the  search,  there  being  two  Mormon  elders  present 
— Marsh  and  Sharp.  The  rock  was  soon  removed,  but  some 
time  elapsed  before  the  plates  were  discovered.  I  finally  picked 
them  up,  and  exclaimed :  "A  piece  of  pot  metal !"  Fayette  Grubb 
snatched  them  from  me  and  struck  them  against  the  rock  and 
they  fell  to  pieces.  Dr.  Harris  examined  them  and  said  they 
had  hieroglyphics  on  them.  He  took  acid  and  removed  the  rust, 
and  they  were  soon  out  on  exhibition.  Under  this  rock  was 
dome-like  in  appearance,  about  three  feet  in  diameter.  There 
were  a  few  bones  in  the  last  stage  of  decomposition,  also  a  few 
pieces  of  pottery  and  charcoal.  There  was  no  skeleton  found. 
Sharp,  the  Mormon  elder,  leaped  and  shouted  for  joy,  and  said 
Satan  had  appeared  to  him  and  told  him  not  to  go  (to  the 
diggings),  it  was  a  hoax  of  Fugate  and  Wiley's,  but  at  a  later 
hour  the  Lord  appeared  and  told  him  to  go,  the  treasure  was 
there. 

The  Mormons  wanted  to  take  the  plates  to  Joe  Smith,  but 
we  refused  to  let  them  go.  Some  time  afterward  a  man  assum 
ing  the  name  of  Savage,  of  Quincy,  borrowed  the  plates  of 
Wiley  to  show  to  his  literary  friends  there,  and  took  them  to 
Joe  Smith.  The  same  identical  plates  were  returned  to  Wiley, 
who  gave  them  to  Professor  McDowell,  of  St.  Louis,  for  his 
Museum.  W.  FUGAT 

STATE  OF  ILLINOIS,  ^ 
BROWN  COUNTY,  j 

W.  Fugate,  being  first  duly  sworn,  deposes  and  savs  that  the 
above  letter,  containing  an  account  of  the  plates  found  near 
Kinderhook,  is  true  and  correct  to  the  best  of  his  recollection. 

W.  FUGATE. 

Subscribed  and  sworn  to  before  me  this  3Oth  day  of  June, 
1879.  JAY  BROWN,  J.  P. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  551 

The  exposure  of  this  fraud  not  only  leaves  the  Mor 
mon  Church  with  one  less  prop  for  its  claim  that  the 
Mound  Builders  wrote  upon  metalic  plates  and  employed 
an  alphabet,  but  it  also  proves  Joseph  Smith  to  be  a 
false  prophet  and  a  deceiver  for  claiming  to  translate 
them. 

The  Newark  Tablet. 

The  "Hebrew  relics"  found  in  mounds  near  Newark, 
Ohio,  in  the  year  1860,  are  relied  upon  by  Mormon 
archaeologists  to  prove  their  claim  that  the  ancient  Amer 
icans  were  of  Jewish  descent.  The  description  of  these 
relics,  as  given  in  the  Prophetic  Watchman  of  Septem 
ber  14,  1866,  is  as  follows: 


"We  are  all  more  or  less  acquainted  with  the  so-called 
'Indian  Mounds'  found  in  various  parts  of  our  country. 
There  are  hundreds  of  them  in  Ohio  alone — several  near 
Newark,  Licking  County.  Pipes,  copper  beads  strung 
upon  a  vegetable  fiber,  human  skeletons,  skulls,  bones  of 
animals  and  birds,  some  charred  by  fire,  as  if  they  had 
been  sacrificed  upon  a  burning  pile,  have  been  obtained 
from  them.  For  centuries  it  has  been  a  most  interesting 
subject  of  inquiry  as  to  who  built  these  mounds,  and 
whence  came  their  builders.  Within  the  past  few  years 
some  relics  have  been  discovered,  which  are  thought  to 
throw  light  on  the  subject: 

"The  first  is  a  little  coarse  sandstone,  not  quite  an 
inch  and  a  half  high  by  about  two  inches  long.  It  was 
found  in  the  'Wilson  Mound/  and  bears  the  face  of  a 
human  being.  On  the  forehead  are  five  distinct  Hebrew 
characters,  which  are  interpreted  to  mean:  'May  the 
Lord  have  mercy  on  him  (or  me)  an  untimely  birth/ 
evidently  an  expression  of  humiliation. 


$52  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

"The  second  relic  from  the  same  mound  is  stone, 
closely  resembling  limestone.  It  is  rather  triangular 
than  square  in  its  form,  and  yet  it  differs  widely  from 
both.  It  represents  an  animal,  and  contains  four  human 
faces  and  three  inscriptions  in  Hebrezv,  signifying  de 
votion,  reverence  and  natural  depravity. 

"The  third  stone  was  found  in  1860,  about  three  miles 
from  Newark.  It  has  a  shape  like  a  wedge,  and  is  about 
six  inches  long,  tapering  at  the  end.  On  one  end  is  a 
handle,  and  at  the  top  are  four  Hebrew  inscriptions. 

"The  last  relic  is  an  object  of  much  interest.  It  was 
found  in  1860,  and  has  engraved  upon  it  a  figure  of 
Moses,  and  the  Ten  Commandments.  One  side  is  de 
pressed,  and  the  reverse  protrudes.  Over  the  figure  is  a 
Hebrew  word  signifying  'Moses.'  The  other  inscriptions 
are  almost  literally  the  words  found  in  some  parts  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  Ten  Commandments  are  given  in  part 
and  entirely — the  longest  being  abbreviated.  The  alpha 
bet  used,  it  is  thought,  is  the  original  Hebrew  one,  as 
there  are  letters  known  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet  (not)  now 
in  use,  but  bearing  a  resemblance  to  them.  All  things  on 
this  stone  point  to  the  time  before  Ezra,  to  the  lost 
tribes  of  Israel,  and  the  theory  is  that  some  one  of 
these  tribes  found  their  way  into  this  continent,  and 
settled  where  the  State  of  Ohio  now  exists." — Quoted 
in  "Joseph  the  Seer,"  pp.  157,  158. 

Apostle  Blair  also  gives  a  number  of  other  quota 
tions  from  the  periodicals  of  that  time  describing  these 
tablets,  and  then  remarks:  "Now  from  these  relics  we 
learn  just  what  was  claimed  by  the  Book  of  Mormon 
over  thirty  years  before  their  discovery,  (i)  that  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  America  possessed  a  knowledge 
of,  and  wrote  upon  enduring  substances,  a  modified  form 
of  the  Hebrew  language;  (2)  that  they  possessed  the 


CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED  553 

writings  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  up  to  the  times  of 
Jeremiah,  including  the  first  part  of  his  writings  to 
chapter  17,  verse  9,  The  heart  is  deceitful,'  etc.  .  .  . 
We  find  (3)  that  these  sacred  writings  were  hidden  up 
in  'a  stone  box,'  as  were  the  plates  of  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon.  Here,  then,  is  a  chain  of  evidence  in  support  of 
the  claims  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  that  is  as  strong  as 
it  is  strange,  and  one  that  can  not  fail  to  fasten  con 
viction  upon  the  mind  of  the  unprejudiced  enquirer, 
while  it  joyfully  confirms  the  faith  of  the  believer." — 
Joseph  the  Seer,  pp.  160,  161. 

The  last  relic  mentioned  in  the  Prophetic  Watchman 
is  the  one  that  Mr.  Blair  refers  to  when  he  says  that 
"these  sacred  writings  were  hidden  up  in  'a  stone  box.'  " 
It  is  described  by  Mr.  A.  A.  Bancroft  as  follows:  "About 
eight  miles  southeast  of  Newark  there  was  formerly  a 
large  mound  composed  of  masses  of  freestone,  which 
had  been  brought  from  some  distance  and  thrown  into  a 
heap  without  much  placing  or  care.  In  early  days,  stone 
being  scarce  in  that  region,  the  settlers  carried  away  the 
mound  piece  by  piece  to  use  for  building  purposes,  so 
that  in  a  few  years  there  was  little  more  than  a  large 
flattened  heap  of  rubbish  remaining.  Some  fifteen  years 
ago,  the  county  surveyor  (I  have  forgotten  his  name), 
who  had  for  some  time  been  searching  ancient  works, 
turned  his  attention  to  this  particular  pile.  He  employed 
a  number  of  men  and  proceeded  at  once  to  open  it.  Be 
fore  long  he  was  rewarded  by  finding  in  the  center  and 
near  the  surface  a  bed  of  the  tough  clay  generally  known 
as  pipe-clay,  which  must  have  been  brought  from  a  dis 
tance  of  some  twelve  miles.  Imbedded  in  the  clay  was  a 
coffin,  dug  out  of  a  burr-oak  log,  and  in  a  pretty  good 
state  of  preservation.*  In  the  coffin  was  a  skeleton,  with 
quite  a  number  of  stone  ornaments  and  emblems,  and 


$54  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

some  open  brass  rings,  suitable  for  bracelets  or  anklets. 
These  being  removed,  they  dug  down  deeper,  and  soon 
discovered  a  stone  dressed  to  an  oblong  shape,  about 
eighteen  inches  long  and  twelve  inches  wide,  which 
proved  to  be  a  casket,  neatly  fitted  and  completely  water 
tight,  containing  a  slab  of  stone  of  hard  and  fine  quality, 
an  inch  and  a  half  thick,  eight  inches  long,  four  inches 
and  a  half  widest  one  end,  and  tabering  to  three  inches 
at  the  other.  Upon  the  face  of  the  slab  was  the  figure 
of  a  man,  apparently  a  priest,  with  long,  flowing  beard, 
and  a  robe  reaching  to  his  feet.  Over  his  head  was  a 
curved  line  of  characters,  and  upon  the  edges  and  back 
of  the  stone  were  closely  and  neatly  carved  letters.  The 
slab,  which  I  saw  myself,  was  shown  to  the  Episcopalian 
clergyman  of  Newark,  and  he  pronounced  the  writing  to 
be  the  Ten  Commandments  in  ancient  Hebrew." — Native 
Races,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  94,  95. 

But  this  relic  is  a  fraud.1  After  attracting  world 
wide  attention  and  being  made  the  basis  of  a  vast  amount 
of  speculation,  the  true  character  of  the  Newark  Tablet 
was  exposed  by  accident  after  its  owner's  death.  It 
seems  that  one  David  Wyrick,  the  county  surveyor  of 
Licking  County,  had  espoused  the  belief  that  the  Mound 
Builders  were  the  descendants  of  the  Lost  Ten  Tribes. 
Searching  for  years  among  their  antiquities  for  evidence 
of  this  theory  and  finding  none,  he  at  last  conceived  the 
idea  of  manufacturing  the  tablet,  burying  it  in  the  mound 
described  and  digging  it  up  again  in  order  to  bring  the 
scientific  world  to  his  belief.  No  one  doubted  his  story 
until  after  his  death,  when  the  administrator,  in  cleaning 
up  his  office,  found  in  a  back  room  a  number  of  pieces  of 
slate  upon  which  he  had  practiced  carving  Hebrew  let- 


1  "Primitive  Man  in  Ohio,"  Preface, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  555 

ters,  and  a  Hebrew  Bible  with  the  identical  figure  of 
Moses,  which  appeared  on  the  tablet,  as  a  frontispiece. 
Archaeologists  have  manifested  considerable  charity  for 
Wyrick,  however,  believing  that  he  had  become  half- 
crazed  by  repeated  attacks  of  rheumatism  and  his  failure 
to  find  the  evidence  he  so  long  sought. 

The  best  brief  account  of  the  operations  of  this  man 
that  I  have  seen  is  given  in  MacLean's  "Mound  Build 
ers,"  pp.  119-121:  "David  Wyrick,  of  Newark,  Ohio, 
was  an  uneducated  man,  but  on  the  subject  of  mathe 
matics  possessed  decided  ability.  He  had  held  the  office  of 
county  surveyor  until  he  was  forced  to  retire  on  account 
of  long-continued  attacks  of  acute  rheumatism.  He  was 
regarded  as  an  eccentric  character  and  incapable  of  de 
liberate  deception.  He  had  adopted  the  idea  that  the 
Hebrews  were  the  builders  of  the  earthworks  of  the  West, 
and  as  often  as  his  disease  would  permit  he  sought  dili 
gently  for  proofs  of  his  theory.  His  first  discovery  was 
made  during  the  month  of  June,  1860.  This  discovery 
consisted  in  what  is  known  as  the  'Newark  Holy  Stone/ 
and  was  found  about  a  mile  southwest  of  the  town,  near 
the  center  of  an  artificial  circular  depression,  common 
among  the  earthworks.  As  soon  as  he  found  it  he  ran 
away  to  the  town,  and  there  with  exultation  exhibited  it 
as  a  triumphant  proof  of  his  Hebrew  theory.  Upon  ex 
amination  it  proved  to  be  a  Masonic  emblem  representing 
the  'Key  Stone'  of  an  arch  formerly  worn  by  Master 
Masons.  The  Hebrew  inscription  has  been  thus  ren 
dered  into  English:  The  law  of  God,  the  word  of  God, 
the  King  of  the  earth  is  most  holy.'  The  stone  did  not 
have  the  appearance  of  antiquity,  and  probably  was  acci 
dentally  dropped  into  the  depression,  and  then  covered 
over  by  the  accumulation  of  loam  and  vegetable  matter 
continually  washed  into  the  center  of  the  cavity. 


556 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


"Wyrick  continued  his  researches  and  soon  made  a 
startling  discovery.  During  the  summer  of  1860,  with 
three  other  persons,  he  repaired  to  the  spot  where  the 
stone  mound  had  stood  and  there  dug  up  the  trough 
which  had  been  re-entombed  by  the  farmers  in  1850.  In 
the  following  November  Wyrick,  with  five  other  men, 
met  at  this  spot  and  made  still  farther  examinations. 
They  found  several  articles  of  stone,  among  which  was 
a  stone  box  enclosing  an  engraved  tablet.  Upon  one 
side  of  the  tablet  is  a  savage  and  pugnacious  likeness  of 
Moses,  with  his  name  in  Hebrew  over  his  head.  Upon 
the  other  side  of  this  stone  is  an  abridgment  in  Hebrew 
of  the  Ten  Commandments.  Archaeologists  never  had 
much  faith  in  the  Holy  Stone,  and  the  discovery  of  Moses 
and  the  Ten  Commandments  soon  established  Wyrick's 
character  as  an  impostor.  'Not  long  after  this  he  died, 
and  in  his  private  room,  among  the  valuable  relics  he  had 
so  zealously  collected,  a  Hebrew  Bible  was  found,  which 
fully  cleared  up  the  mystery  of  Hebrew  inscriptions 
"even  in  Ohio."  This  had  been  the  secret  and  study  of 
years  by  a  poverty-stricken  and  suffering  man,  who,  in 
some  respects,  was  almost  a  genius.  His  case  presents 
the  human  mind  in  one  of  its  most  mysterious  phases, 
partly  aberration  and  partly  fraud/  '' 

The  latter  part  of  this  quotation  is  an  extract  from 
Whittlesey's  "Archaeological  Frauds,"  Tract  No.  9. 

It  seems  that  others  were  also  implicated  in  these 
frauds,  as  the  following  will  show : 

"A  correspondent  from  Newark,  Ohio,  warns  us  that 
any  inscribed  stones  said  to  originate  from  that  locality 
may  be  looked  upon  as  spurious.  Years  ago  certain 
parties  in  that  place  made  a  business  of  manufacturing 
and  burying  inscribed  stones  and  other  objects  in  the 
autumn,  and  exhuming  them  the  following  spring  in  the 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  557 

presence  of  innocent  witnesses.  Some  of  the  parties  to 
these  frauds  afterwards  confessed  to  them ;  and  no  such 
objects,  except  such  as  were  spurious,  have  ever  been 
known  from  that  region." — Science,  Vol.  III.,  No.  62,  p. 
467. 

This  is  an  editorial  note  supplementary  to  the  ac 
count  of  the  exhibiting  of  an  inscribed  stone,  said  to  have 
been  found  at  Newark,  Ohio,  by  Dr.  N.  Roe  Bradner,  at 
the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia,  which 
was  published  in  the  same  magazine,  Vol.  III.,  No.  58, 

P-  334-1 

I  am  willing  to  let  the  reader  decide  for  himseK 
whether  or  not  the  inscribed  stones  from  Newark  con 
stitute  "a  chain  of  evidence  in  support  of  the  claims  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon  that  is  as  strong  as  it  is  strange, 
and  one  that  can  not  fail  to  fasten  conviction  upon  the 
mind  of  the  unprejudiced  enquirer." 

The  Davenport  Tablets. 

In  the  year  1874  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gass,  an  archaeologist, 
began  the  exploration  of  a  group  of  ten  or  twelve 
mounds  about  a  mile  below  the  city  of  Davenport,  Iowa. 
These  mounds  were  situated  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  from  the  Mississippi  River  and  from  eight  to  twelve 
feet  above  low-water  mark.  Excavations  brought  to 
light  human  bones  and  such  articles  as  sea  shells,  copper 
hatchets,  arrow-heads,  pieces  of  galena,  pieces  of  pot 
tery,  pipes  and  copper  spool-shaped  ornaments.  One  of 
the  mounds  in  this  group,  known  as  Mound  No.  3,  which 
was  about  three  feet  high  by  sixty  feet  in  diameter,  was 
found  to  contain  two  graves.  Only  one  of  these  was 
opened  at  that  time  and  was  found  to  contain  five  skel 
etons,  two  of  them  evidently  intrusive  burials.  With 

1  March    14,  1884.     "Fourth  Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  247. 


558 


CUMORAH   REVISITED 


the  three  which  pertained  to  the  original  interment  were 
found  copper  axes,  carved  stone  pipes,  bear's  teeth,  etc. 
The  second  grave  was  not  opened  until  the  year  1877, 
when  it  was  explored  by  Mr.  Gass  and  a  party  of  ar 
chaeologists.  Near  the  surface  they  found  such  modern 
relics  as  glass  beads  and  the  fragments  of  a  brass  ring, 
while  at  the  bottom  they  found  lying  together  on  a  bed 


FIGURE  24.     DAVENPORT   TABLET. 

of  hard  clay  the  two  inscribed  tablets  about  which  so 
much  has  been  written.  The  larger  of  these  tablets  is 
about  twelve  inches  long  by  from  eight  to  ten  inches 
wide,  and  is  made  of  dark  coal  slate;  the  smaller  is  about 
seven  inches  square  and  has  small  holes  bored  in  the 
upper  corners. 

On  one  of  the  sides  of  the  larger  tablet  is  what  has 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  559 

been  named  the  "cremation  scene."  It  is  the  picture  of 
a  mound  upon  whose  summit  a  fire  is  burning.  Around 
this  is  a  circle  of  figures,  evidently  going  through  some 
kind  of  a  dance,  as  they  have  hold  of  hands,  while  lying 
prostrate  on  the  ground  are  a  number  more,  who,  it  has 
been  suggested,  are  human  sacrifices  about  to  be  offered. 
Above  the  cremation  scene  are  symbols  of  the  sun  and 
moon  and  above  these  an  arch  formed  by  three  curved, 
parallel  lines  between  and  above  which  are  a  number  of 
peculiar  characters,  some  of  them  Arabic  figures  and 
Roman  numerals.  tJfinCfoft  LibfWj 

On  the  reverse  side  of  this  tablet  is  what  has  been 
called  the  "hunting  scene."  Grouped  promiscuously  be 
neath  a  large  tree  which  occupies  the  foreground  are  a 
number  of  men,  animals  and  birds.  Of  men  there  are 
eight;  of  bison,  four;  of  deer,  four;  of  birds,  three;  of 
hares,  three;  of  Rocky  Mountain  goats,  one;  of  fish, 
one ;  of  wolves,  one ;  and  of  nondescript  beasts,  three. 
It  has  been  stated  that  this  scene  suggests  the  knowl 
edge  that  the  ancient  Americans  had  of  the  flood,  as  four 
of  the  human  figures  are  said  to  be  females,  while  a  fifth 
has  the  appearance  of  a  patriarch,  probably  Noah. 

The  smaller  tablet  has  been  called  the  "calendar 
stone,"  as  it  contains  twelve  zodiacal  signs  and  three  con 
centric  circles.  I  copy  the  following  description  of  it 
from  Elder  Walker's  "Ruins  Revisited,"  p.  210:  "This 
tablet  .  .  .  represents  a  planetary  configuration,  the  twelve 
signs  of  the  Zodiac,  known  to  all  nations  of  old,  and  the 
seven  planets,  conjoined  with  six  different  signs.  .  .  . 
The  figures  of  the  signs  are  the  same  which  we  find 
depicted  on  Egyptian,  Greek,  Roman  and  other  monu 
ments.  .  .  .  The  signs  Aries,  Taurus,  Gemini,  are  plain 
enough.  Gemini  is  expressed  by  two  sitting  children, 
like  the  constellation  of  Gemini,  at  present  Castor  and 


56o  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Pollux.  Cancer  is  expressed  by  the  head  and  shears  of 
the  animal.  Leo  and  Virgo  are  likewise  naturally  de 
lineated  ;  and  Virgo,  as  it  seems  to  me,  bears  in  her  hand 
Spica.  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the  figures  of  Libra, 
Scorpio  and  Sagitarius.  The  latter  is  expressed  by  a 
bow  and  arrow,  being  nearly  invisible.  Capricornus  was, 
as  we  learn  from  the  astronomical  monuments  of  the 
Egyptians,  a  species  of  antelope,  and  the  same  animal, 
though  a  little  deformed,  resembles  our  Capricornus. 
Aquarius  and  Pisces  explain  themselves,  for  the  former 
was  on  ancient  monuments,  very  often  symbolized  by  an 
ampora.  .  .  .  These  short  lines  placed  below  Pisces, 
Gemini,  Virgo  and  Sagitarius  argue  that  at  that  time, 
at  the  beginning  of  spring,  the  sun  stood  in  Pisces." 

Another  tablet  of  limestone  was  found  in  Mound 
No.  II  of  this  group  by  the  president  of  the  Davenport 
Academy  of  Science,  Mr.  Charles  Harrison,  in  1878. 
On  this  tablet  were  rudely  drawn  a  circle  representing 
the  sun,  a  crescent  representing  the  moon,  and  a  figure 
astride  the  circle  which  was  colored  a  bright  red.  This 
is  said  to  be  the  "memorial  of  a  great  eclipse  of  the  sun." 

The  conclusions  that  have  been  drawn  from  these 
tablets  are  given  by  Mr.  Walker  as  follows : 

"i.  The  primitive  inhabitants  of  America  were  no 
pre- Adamites,  nor  offspring  of  the  monkeys,  but  No- 
achites. 

"2.  They  belonged  to  the  same  nation  by  which  Mex 
ico  and  South  America  were  populated,  after  the  dis 
persion  of  the  nations  in  1590  B.  C. 

"3.  The  literature  of  the  American  Indians  evidences 
that  they  immigrated  from  Japan  or  Corea  or  proper 
China. 

"4.  They  must  have  come  over  prior  to  the  year  1579 
B.C. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  561 

"5.  Our  Indians,  as  well  as  those  in  Mexico  and 
South  America,  knew  the  history  of  the  deluge,  es 
pecially  that  Noah's  family  then  consisted  of  eight  per 
sons. 

"6.  The  primitive  inhabitants  of  America  were  much 
more  civilized  than  our  present  Indians. 

"7.  The  former  understood  the  art  of  writing  and 
used  a  great  many  syllabic  characters,  based  upon  the 
Noachian  alphabet,  and  wrote  from  left  to  the  right 
hand,  like  the  Chinese. 

"8.  They  were  acquainted  with  the  seven  planets  and 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  and  they  referred  the 
same  stars  to  the  same  constellations  as  did  the  Chal 
deans,  Egyptians,  Greeks,  Romans  and  others. 

"9.  They  had  solar  years  and  solar  months,  even 
twelve  hours  of  each  day.  They  knew  the  cardinal 
points  of  the  zodiac,  and  cardinal  days  of  the  year. 

"10.  Their  religious  creed  was  that  of  the  Babylo 
nians,  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  Greeks,  Romans,  etc.,  be 
cause  they  worshiped  the  planets  and  the  twelve  gods  of 
the  zodiac  by  sacrifices." — Ruins  Revisited,  pp.  210,  211. 

These  conclusions,  with  the  preceding  description  of 
the  "calendar  stone,"  were  copied  by  Mr.  Walker  from 
the  "Report"  of  the  Davenport  Academy  for  1882.  He 
expresses  his  faith  in  the  genuineness  of  these  tablets 
in  these  words:  "Some  persons  whose  positions  require 
that  they  should  object  to  the  above  report  now,  or  for 
ever  hold  their  peace,  have  arisen  and  objected ;  but  with 
the  many  concordant  facts  before  it,  it  falls  into  line 
without  a  shock." — Ibid,  p.  211. 

But  the  genuineness  of  these  relics  has  never  been 
satisfactorily  established.  Many  archaeologists  reject 
them  without  question,  while  some  others  regard  them 
simply  as  within  the  ability  of  modern  Dakota  tribes. 


562  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

A  number  of  things  have  worked  against  their  gen 
uineness.  For  instance,  among  the  characters  between 
the  second  and  third  parallel  lines  in  the  so-called 
"cremation  scene,"  the  word  TOWN  is  very  plainly 
to  be  made  out,  while  in  the  "hunting  scene"  one  of  the 
men  has  on  a  modern  hat.  The  figure  8  also  occurs  three 
times  and  the  letter  O  seven.  Adding  to  these  facts 
the  fact  that  the  so-called  "calendar  stone"  has  a  de 
cidedly  modern  and  European  appearance  and  the  reader 
will  observe  that  their  claim  to  genuineness  is,  to  say 
the  most,  a  very  doubtful  one.  Professor  Thomas  says : 
"A  consideration  of  all  the  facts  leads  us,  inevitably,  to 
the  conclusion  that  these  relics  are  frauds:  that  is,  they 
are  modern  productions  made  to  deceive." — Twelfth 
Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,  p.  642. 

But  the  presence  of  English  letters  and  numerals  on 
these  tablets  can  be  very  plausibly  explained  by  the 
theory  that  they  were  the  work  of  some  modern  Dakota 
who  not  only  understood  the  pictography  of  his  own 
tribe,  but  who  was  also  familiar  with  a  few  English  signs 
and  characters.  This  is  the  opinion  of  a  number  of 
our  archaeologists.  Dellenbaugh  says :  "The  Davenport 
tablet  has  been  pronounced,  on  good  authority,  to  be 
within  the  powers  of  the  Dakota  tribes." — North  Ameri 
cans  of  Yesterday,  p.  68. 

This  seems  to  have  been  demonstrated  by  Mr. 
Horatio  N,  Rust,  of  Pasadena,  California,  who  pre 
sented  drawings  of  the  scenes  on  these  tablets  to  a  num 
ber  of  Dakota  Indians.  He  says :  "As  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  several  of  the  older  and  more  intelligent 
members  of  the  tribe,  I  took  the  opportunity  to  show 
them  the  drawings.  Explaining  that  they  were  pictures 
copied  from  stones  found  in  a  mound,  I  asked  what  they 
meant.  They  readily  gave  me  the  same  interpretation 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  563 

(and  in  no  instance  did  either  interpreter  know  that  an 
other  had  seen  the  pictures,  so  there  could  be  no  col 
lusion)."1 

According  to  their  interpretation  the  mound  in  the 
"cremation  scene"  is  simply  a  dirt  lodge,  like  those  in 
use  among  different  Indian  tribes,  from  the  aperture  in 
the  roof  of  which  smoke  is  seen  ascending.  The  figures 
hand-in-hand  indicate  that  a  dance  is  in  progress,  while 
the  three  prostrate  on  the  ground,  instead  of  being 
"human  sacrifices,"  are  those  of  two  men  and  a  woman 
who  have  fallen  down  exhausted.  The  smoke  issuing 
from  the  roof  indicates  that  it  is  winter-time  and  that 
fire  is  needed.  The  readiness  and  uniformity  with  which 
the  Sioux  interpreted  these  tablets  would  seem  to  indi 
cate  that  they  are  genuine  mound  relics,  manufactured 
by  a  member,  or  members,  of  the  Dakota  tribes,  while 
the  English  letters  and  numerals  and  the  "modern  hat" 
would  just  as  plainly  seem  to  imply  that  they  were  man-, 
ufactured  after  the  engraver  had  become  familiar  with 
our  civilization.  The  ten  conclusions  quoted  by  Mr. 
Walker  from  the  "Report  of  the  Davenport  Academy" 
are  simply  preposterous  and  ridiculous. 

The  Mendon  Plates. 

The  following  description  of  certain  plates  with  in 
scriptions  upon  them,  said  to  have  been  found  near  Men 
don,  Illinois,  is  taken  from  the  St.  Louis  Chronicle  of 
February,  1889: 

"Rev.  S.  D.  Peet,  the  well-known  antiquarian,  is  re 
ported  as  having  found  in  Illinois  two  cross  plates  which 
have  all  the  appearance  of  being  rude  musical  instru 
ments.  These  plates  are  about  fifteen  inches  square  and 
there  are  places  for  strings  and  a  bridge.  Along  the 

1  "Fourth  Kept.  Bu.  Am.  Ethno.,"  p.  251. 


564  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

lower  edge  is  a  row  of  hieroglyphics  similar  to  those  on 
the  famous  Palmyra  plates,  said  to  have  been  discovered 
by  Joseph  Smith  and  from  which  he  interpreted  the 
Book  of  Mormon." 

This  quotation  is  another  very  sweet  morsel  for  the 
Mormon  tongue.  I  find  it  in  "The  Book  Unsealed,"  p. 
44;  "The  Book  of  Mormon  Vindicated,"  p.  45,  and  "The 
Book  of  Mormon  Verified,"  p.  31. 

Deciding  that  the  best  way  to  get  at  the  truth  in  this 
matter  was  to  write  to  Mr.  Peet  himself,  I  sent  the  fol 
lowing  letter,  dated  at  Buchanan,  Michigan,  August  6, 
1907: 

REV.  S.  D.  PEET,  Chicago,  Illinois: 

Dear  Sir — In  several  Mormon  works,  treating  on  American 
archaeology,  I  find  the  following  quotation,  said  to  be  taken 
from  the  St.  Louis  Chronicle  of  February,  1889:  ''Rev.  S.  D. 
Peet,  the  well-known  antiquarian,  is  reported  as  having  found 
in  Illinois  two  cross  plates  which  have  all  the  appearance  of 
being  rude  musical  instruments.  These  plates  are  about  fifteen 
inches  square  and  there  are  places  for  strings  and  a  bridge. 
Along  the  lower  edge  is  a  row  of  hieroglyphics  similar  to  those 
on  the  famous  Palmyra  plates,  said  to  have  been  discovered  by 
Joseph  Smith  and  from  which  he  interpreted  the  Book  of  Mor 
mon."  The  Mormons  employ  this  quotation  to  prove  that  the 
ancient  Americans  used  hieroglyphics,  similar  to  those  said  to 
have  been  discovered  by  Joseph  Smith,  and  that  they  wrote  upon 
metallic  plates.  Will  you  kindly  answer  the  following  ques 
tions :  (i)  Did  you  find  such  plates?  (2)  If  so,  are  you  certain 
that  they  are  of  pre-Columbian  origin?  (3)  Did  they  have  upon 
them  "a  row  of  hieroglyphics  similar  to  those  on  the  famous 
Palmyra  plates  said  to  have  been  discovered  by  Joseph  Smith"? 
Yours,  CHARLES  A.  SHOOK. 

To  this  inquiry  Mr.  Peet  replied  from  Chicago, 
August  8,  1907,  as  follows : 

"As  to  the  musical  instrument  which  was  found  near 
Mendon,  not  far  from  Quincy,  Illinois,  near  a  house  that 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  565 

had  been  occupied  by  a  Mormon,  I  have  nothing  more 
to  say  than  has  been  published.  It  was  probably  the  top 
of  a  fiddle  which  somebody  tried  to  make  out  of  a  piece 
of  sheet  copper.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  revelation 
contained  on  it." 

I  also  find  a  note  in  his  "Mound  Builders,"  p.  44, 
touching  the  same  point :  "It  has  been  intimated  that  the 
Mormons  planted  these  tablets." — Davenport. — "The  re 
cent  find  at  Mendon,  Illinois,  of  a  brass  plate  or  sound 
ing-board  of  a  musical  instrument,  with  similar  char 
acters,  near  a  house  once  occupied  by  Mormons,  confirms 
this  conjecture." 

Can  it  be  that  the  Mormons  buried  these  plates  in 
order  to  suggest  to  their  finders  the  possibility  of  there 
being  some  truth  in  the  claim  of  Joseph  Smith  that  he 
found  metallic  plates  in  Hill  Cumorah? 

CONCLUSION. 

In  closing  this  chapter  and  this  book,  I  wish  to  bring 
before  the  reader  in  summarized  form  a  few  of  the 
facts  which  I  believe  have  been  fully  established  in  the 
preceding  pages : 

(1)  That  the  American  race  is,  and  has  been,  one 
from  the  close  of  the  Glacial  Period  to  the  present,  and 
that  the  American  Indians  are  not  descendants  of  the 
children  of  Israel. 

(2)  That  the  civilization  of  the  ancient  races  was  in 
digenous  and  was  not  derived  from  either  Egypt  or  Pal 
estine,  the  analogies  brought   forward  to  prove  such  a 
derivation  being  mere  coincidences. 

(3)  That  none  of  the  ancient  peoples  had  attained  to   - 
the  stage  of  culture  attributed  to  the  peoples  of  the  Book 
of  Mormon,  being  ignorant  of  the  arts  ot  smelting  and 
working  iron  and  the  use  of  alphabetic  characters. 


566  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

(4)  That  the  theory  of  extinct  races — that  is,  extinct 
in  the  sense  in  which  Mormons  use  the  term — is  a  pure 
fallacy,  the  ancient  Mound  Builders,  Cliff  Dwellers,  Cen 
tral  Americans,  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  being  the  direct 
ancestors,  in  both  blood  and  culture,  of  those  races  found 
here  by  the  whites. 

(5)  That  the  ancient  races  were  neither  Jews  nor 
Christians,  but  pagans  and  worshipers  of  the  elements 
and  phenomena  of  nature,  mountains,  rocks,  trees,  beasts, 
birds  and  men. 

(6)  That  the  ancient  empires  were  very  small  as 
compared  with  the  continent  and  did  not  comprehend 
parts  of  both  Americas.    And 

(7)  That  the  trend  of  migration  in  the  Northern 
Continent  was   from  north  to  south,  instead  of  in  the 
opposite  direction. 

Written  across  the  claim  of  the  historical  credibility 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  in  letters  so  bold  that  every 
intelligent,  honest  eye  may  read  them,  is  the  word 
"TEKEL,"  "thou  art  weighed  in  the  balances,  and  art 
found  wanting." 

THE  END. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  567 


APPENDIX 


THE   BOGUS   RELICS   FROM   MICHIGAN 

Since  the  foregoing  pages  were  written  and  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  publishers,  the  attention  of  the  public 
has  been  called  to  certain  supposed  "relics,"  said  to  have 
been  found  in  the  mounds  of  the  State  of  Michigan. 
These  purported  antiquities  are  plates  of  copper,  tablets 
of  clay  and  stone,  caskets  of  clay  and  other  objects,  most 
of  which  have  curious  pictographs  and  hieroglyphics  en 
graved  or  stamped  upon  them. 

It  seems  that  three  men  are  now  most  zealously  advo 
cating  the  genuineness  of  these  "finds" — Mr.  Daniel  E. 
Soper,  formerly  Secretary  of  State;  Rev.  James  Savage, 
a  priest  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  Elder  Ru 
dolph  Etzenhouser,  a  minister  of  the  Reorganized 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints,  all  of  whom 
now  reside  in  the  city  of  Detroit 

These  gentlemen  have  recently  put  out  a  booklet,  en 
titled  "Engravings  of  Prehistoric  Specimens  from  Mich 
igan,  U.  S.  A.,"  which  contains  forty-four  photographic 
cuts  of  the  objects  mentioned,  and  which  is  gotten  up 
for  the  purpose  of  arousing  in  these  things  "the  interest 
of  students  of  philology  or  those  engaged  in  historical 
and  archaeological  research."  In  the  introduction  to  this 
brochure  Mr.  Etzenhouser  says: 

"Students  of  American  archaeology  will  find  in  the 
following  pages  reproductions  of  the  monuments  of  a 
race  of  primitive  Americans,  monuments  of  a  people 


568  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

whose  existence  has  hitherto  been  involved  in  an  obscurity 
as  complete  as  that  which  envelopes  their  history.  Some 
of  the  specimens  are  of  stone,  some  of  copper  and  others 
of  clay.  They  have  been  unearthed  for  the  most  part 
through  the  efforts  of  amateur  investigators,  and  repre 
sent  the  contents  of  hundreds  of  mounds  scattered  over 
the  Lower  Peninsula  of  Michigan.  The  language  in 
scribed  on  these  tablets  has  not  as  yet  been  interpreted, 
but  will  doubtless,  some  day,  succumb  to  the  advance  of 
philology,  and  they  will  perhaps  yield  an  interesting 
chapter  to  the  ancient  history  of  this  continent." 

With  all  due  respect  to  the  obvious  honesty  of  the 
three  gentlemen  whose  names  have  been  mentioned,  I 
must  say  that  these  startling  "finds"  bear  on  the  face  of 
them  the  very  marks  of  imposture  and  have  undoubtedly 
been  manufactured  and  buried  in  the  mounds  by  some  in 
dividual  or  some  gang  of  individuals  either  for  pure  mis 
chief  or  to  be  sold  at  fancy  prices  to  unwary  collectors, 
and  so  line  the  pockets  of  the  fabricators. 

My  reason  for  noticing  these  frauds  here  is  that  they 
have  been  made  to  do  service  in  behalf  of  Mormonism, 
and  have,  within  the  last  year,  been  held  up  before  the 
public  by  representatives  of  that  delusion  as  proof  that 
the  ancient  Americans  wrote  upon  metallic  plates  and 
employed  an  hieroglyphical  system  of  writing.  It  is  also 
probable  that  they  will  continue  to  be  so  employed  by  the 
enthusiastic  elder  unless  their  fraudulent  character  is 
fully  exposed,  although,  I  am  informed,  even  some  of 
the  representatives  of  the  Reorganized  Church  ques 
tioned  their  genuineness  at  their  recent  Conference,  held 
at  Independence,  Missouri.  It  may  be  that  their  experi 
ences  with  the  "Kinderhook  Plates,"  the  "Newark  Tab 
let"  and  other  similar  "finds"  have  taught  them  that  dis 
cretion,  after  all,  is  the  better  part  of  valor. 


CUMORAti  REVISITED  569 

About  the  year  1890  interest  in  American  antiquities 
had  reached  a  high  pitch.  The  Ohio  mounds  were  being 
scientifically  examined  by  Professors  Putnam  and  Moore- 
head,  and  other  archaeologists,  and  the  daily  papers  were 
full  of  the  accounts  of  their  discoveries.  The  deep  in 
terest  in  these  things  created  a  market  for  all  kinds  of 
archaeological  specimens,  and  in  some  instances  fabulous 
prices  were  paid  for  them.  It  was  during  this  period  of 
interest  in  American  antiquities  that  the  first  of  these 
Michigan  "relics"  were  found.  In  October,  1890,  a  man 
digging  post-holes,  discovered  a  small  clay  cup  in  a  field 
near  Wyman,  Montcalm  County.  This  created  some 
little  stir,  but  in  the  following  spring,  when  other  and 
more  curious  objects  were  found,  the  people  of  that 
vicinity  became  highly  excited.  At  Stanton,  the  county- 
seat  of  Montcalm  County,  a  "syndicate"  was  formed  for 
the  purpose  of  pushing  the  work  of  research,  and  mound 
after  mound  and  undulation  after  undulation  were  ex 
cavated  with  the  result  that  a  surprisingly  large  number 
of  objects  were  brought  to  light.  These  consisted  chiefly 
of  clay  tablets  and  clay  caskets,  whose  lids  were  sur 
mounted  with  lions,  sphinxes  and  other  figures,  all  bear 
ing  certain  marks  which  were  taken  for  hieroglyphics. 
In  order  to  satisfy  the  public  of  the  finding  of  these 
"relics,"  affidavits  were  made,  some  of  them  subscribed 
to  by  men  of  probity  and  honor,  and  every  effort  was  put 
forth  to  establish  the  fact  that  these  so-called  "an 
tiquities"  had  been  found  in  the  mounds  as  claimed.  By 
this  time  the  attention  of  scientific  men  was  attracted, 
and  a  number  of  expert  archaeologists  began  to  make 
investigations.  But  these  investigations  did  not  prove  to 
be  highly  creditable  to  these  purported  "antiquities." 
Certain  marks  of  imposture,  which  would  be  unob- 
servable  to  an  unpracticed  eye,  were  easily  detected. 


570  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Prof.  Alfred  Emerson,  of  Lake  Forest  College,  after  a 
careful  examination  on  the  ground,  wrote :  "The  articles 
were  bad  enough  in  the  photograph;  an  examination 
proved  them  to  be  humbugs  of  the  first  water."  Other 
scientists  followed  him  with  caustic  criticisms,  and  under 
these  repeated  attacks  the  craze  finally  subsided  and  for 
some  years  little  was  heard  of  these  "relics." 

But  some  two  or  three  years  ago  they  were  again 
brought  to  the  front  by  the  finding  of  similar  'objects 
in  other  parts  of  the  State,  and  to-day  are  creating  no 
little  attention  in  some  sections  and  with  a  certain  class. 
The  fabricators,  profiting  by  the  criticisms  of  the  past, 


have  improved  their  wares  and  have  been  more  careful 
in  hiding  them  away,  and  the  archaeologist  is  now  con 
fronted  with  a  perplexing  medley  of  representations  of 
the  Deluge  and  the  Tower  of  Babel,  war  scenes  in  which 
bands  of  American  Indians  are  meeting  in  mortal  combat 
a  race  to  us  unknown,  views  probably  suggested  by 
Egyptian  mythology  and  Egyptian,  Assyrian  and  Pheni- 
cian  characters. 

Fortunately  for  science,  however,  there  are  certain 
common  characteristics  which  link  all  these  frauds  to 
gether  into  one  grand  deception.  Whether  they  come 
from  Montcalm,  Wayne  or  Crawford  County,  whether 
they  were  found  in  1891  or  1908,  they  all,  with  few,  if 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  571 

any,  exceptions,  have  on  them  one  character  (Fig.  i) 
which  has  been  called  the  "sign  manual"  of  the  forger. 
This  being  true,  to  expose  one  is  to  expose  all. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  rejecting  these  objects 
as  spurious  is  their  anomalous  character.  They  are 
wholly  unlike  the  general  run  of  relics  that  have  been 
taken  from  the  mounds  throughout  the  rest  of  the  United 
States.  In  1819  Caleb  Atwater  surveyed  and  excavated 
the  prehistoric  works  at  Circleville,  Ohio ;  between  the 
years  1845  and  1847  Squier  and  Davis  opened  more  than 
two  hundred  mounds  throughout  the  Mississippi  Val 
ley;  and  since  then  thousands  upon  thousands  have 
been  examined  in  all  parts  of  the  country  (some 
of  them  in  Michigan),  and  that,  too,  by  such  ex 
perienced  archaeologists  as  Thomas,  Moorehead,  Fowke 
and  Putnam,  and  yet,  throughout  all  this  time  and 
territory,  not  a  single  relic  like  those  found  in 
Michigan  has  ever  been  discovered.  It  remained  for 
the  "amateurs"  of  that  State  to  find  in  a  few  hundred 
mounds  of  insignificant  size  what  our  experts  failed  to 
find  during  nearly  one  hundred  years  of  research  in  the 
largest  and  most  skillfully  constructed  monuments  of 
the  mound-building  people.  If  the  Mound  Builders  em 
ployed  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  hieroglyphics  in  the  State 
of  Michigan,  they  certainly  would  have  employed  them 
elsewhere,  and  our  archaeologists  would  have  discovered 
them  ere  this. 

Another  reason  for  rejecting  these  "finds"  is  that 
they  have  no  concomitant  and  cumulative  evidence  to 
support  the  claim  of  their  genuineness.  If  they  represent 
a  people  at  all,  it  is  a  people  who  were  familiar  with 
the  civilization  of  Egypt,  Assyria  and  Palestine.  And 
yet,  what  have  they  left  as  traces  of  their  existence? 
Nothing  but  a  few  caskets,  plates  and  tablets.  They 


572  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

built  no  temples,  no  palaces,  no  pyramids;  they  lived 
like  Indians,  fought  like  Indians,  died  like  Indians  and 
were  buried  like  Indians;  but  they  knew  all  about  the 
flood,  Noah's  ark  and  the  tower  of  Babel ;  were  familiar 
with  Egyptian  mythology  and  employed  characters  from 
the  languages  of  the  Egyptians  and  Assyrians!  If  a 
colony  of  people  had  come  to  Michigan  centuries  ago 
from  Egypt  or  Assyria,  they  would  have  done  more  than 
simply  to  engrave  Deluge  tablets  or  to  make  clay  caskets ; 
they  would  have  cultivated  the  soil,  built  roads,  cut  stone 
and  erected  structures  consistent  with  their  knowledge 
of  civilization.  When  a  few  ruined  temples,  palaces  and 
pyramids  have  been  discovered  it  will  then  be  time  for 
archaeologists  seriously  to  consider  the  claims  of  the 
Detroit  trio  relative  to  these  "relics." 

The  evident  marks  of  imposture  that  some  of  these 
objects  bear  is  still  another  reason  for  rejecting  them. 
On  this  point,  Professor  Emerson  says  of  those  found  in 
Montcalm  County: 

"They  were  all  of  unbaked  clay,  and  decorated  with 
bogus  hieroglyphics  in  which  cuneiform  characters  ap 
peared  at  intervals.  These  were  all  stamped.  By  way 
of  economizing  labor  the  characters  were  turned  upside 
down  sometimes,  or  laid  sideways.  On  the  back  of  one 
piece  the  characters  were  represented  whole  lines  at  a 
time.  There  were  incumbent  lions  on  some  lids  of  the 
caskets.  Of  these,  one  or  two  had  no  tail.  I  told  one 
of  the  gentlemen  that  a  primitive  artist  would  never 
make  such  an  omission.  He  said  that  the  society  had 
found  the  same  fault,  and  that  afterward  pieces  with 
good  tails  had  been  found.  On  opening  one  casket  we 
found  that  the  lid  had  been  dried  on  a  machine-sawed 
board." — Quoted  in  "Some  Archaeological  Forgeries 
from  Michigan,"  a  paper  by  Prof.  Francis  W.  Kelsey, 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  573 

published  in  the  "American  Anthropologist"  for  January- 
March,  1908. 

On  these  forgeries  Professor  Kelsey  also  speaks  as 
follows : 

"Some  of  the  tablets  were  found  in  the  caskets,  as 
were  also  small  pieces  of  copper,  apparently  made  by 
beating  common  coins  out  smooth  and  impressing  char 
acters  upon  them  with  a  small  chisel.  In  one  casket 
fifteen  of  the  dies  used  in  stamping  on  clay  were  said  to 
have  been  found,  but  I  know  nothing  of  their  character. 
A  few  crude  vases  and  some  other  objects  were  brought 
to  light.  The  material  of  the  caskets,  the  tablets  and  the 
small  sphinx  which  after  a  time  I  myself  examined,  was 
a  light-colored  clay,  containing  so  large  a  percentage  of 
drift  sand  as  to  make  the  objects  fragile.  The  drying, 
done  either  in  the  sun  or  by  exposure  to  mild  heat,  had 
left  cracks,  the  edges  of  which  were  sharp  and  fresh. 
The  material  disintegrated  readily  in  water;  the  objects 
could  therefore  have  been  in  the  ground  only  a  short 
time  before  they  were  dug  out." 

Still  another  objection  to  be  urged  against  these 
"finds"  is  the  preposterous  jumbling  together  of  char 
acters  and  signs  from  different  written  languages.  The 
"sign  manual"  is  undoubtedly  drawn  from  the  Assyrian, 
in  which  the  first  character,  the  perpendicular  wedge,  is 
frequently  used  as  a  determinative  placed  before  male 
proper  names. — First  Steps  in  Assyrian,  p.  39.  Figure  2, 
which  occurs  on  some  of  the  tablets,  is  also  frequently 
employed  in  Assyrian  as  the  ideogram  for  "chief." — Ibid, 
p.  97.  In  Plate  21  of  Mr.  Etzenhouser's  booklet  we  have 
several  columns  of  hieroglyphics  in  which  certain  Egyp 
tian  characters  are  readily  made  out,  especially  those  for 
a,  k  and  t.  Beneath  these  columns  of  characters  we  have, 
very  probably,  a  scene  suggested  by  Egyptian  mythology. 


574  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Three  American  Indians  appear  to  be  making  an  offer 
ing  to  Osiris  or  some  other  god  whose  lower  extremi 
ties  are  encased  in  garments  that  strongly  resemble  a 
pair  of  baggy  pantaloons,  while  he  holds  in  his  hand  an 
Egyptian  key.  The  offerings  consist  of  rings,  which 
were  used  for  money  in  ancient  Egypt  (Smith's  "Bible 
Dictionary,"  Art.,  "Money"),  and  probably  fowls  and 
beasts,  as  the  head  and  neck  of  the  first  is  portrayed, 
while  above  this  is  a  figure  which  strongly  suggests  the 
head,  rump  and  tail  of  a  calf.  Beneath  this  mythologic 
device  are  scratched  marks  to  us  unknown,  with  others 
that  bear  a  very  close  similarity  to  the  Egyptian.  On 
the  opposite  side  of  the  tablet  we  have  the  bust  of  a  per 
sonage  with  strongly  marked  Anglo-Saxon  features. 
This  personage  has  on  his  head  a  peculiarly  shaped  hel 
met.  This  is  a  sample  of  the  curious  medley  which  Mr. 
Etzenhouser  says  "will  doubtless,  some  day,  succumb  to 
the  advance  of  philology."  It  might  not  be  out  of  place 
to  state  here  that  it  has  undoubtedly  succumbed  already. 

I  have  taken  considerable  pains  to  ascertain  the 
opinions  of  a  number  of  our  leading  archaeologists  on 
these  "finds,"  and,  while  one  of  them  has  expressed  him 
self  somewhat  perplexed  over  the  external  evidences, 
they  all,  with  one  accord,  declare  that  the  internal  evi 
dences  plainly  indicate  cases  of  fraud.  In  a  letter,  which 
1  received  April  28,  1910,  Mr.  F.  W.  Hodge,  Ethnologist- 
in-charge  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Smith 
sonian  Institution,  says : 

"Answering  your  letter  of  the  25th  instant,  addressed 
to  the  secretary  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  I  beg 
leave  to  say  that  members  of  this  Bureau  have  ex 
amined  a  number  of  the  objects  referred  to  by  you,  and 
also  many  photographs  of  others,  and  it  is  the  general 
opinion  that  they  were  made  by  some  one  for  purposes  of 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  575 

deception.  You  will  find  an  article  on  the  subject  by 
Prof.  Francis  W.  Kelsey,  president  of  the  Archaeological 
Institute  of  America,  published  in  the  American  An 
thropologist  for  January-March,  1908." 

In  the  article  referred  to,  Professor  Kelsey  says: 

"The  forgeries  of  which  I  have  spoken  differ  from 
all  others  which  I  have  examined  in  this,  that  they  are 
unsophisticated.  The  forger  did  not  know  enough  about 
genuine  relics  of  any  class  to  make  intelligent  imitations. 
He  had  never  seen  the  things  which  he  undertook  to 
reproduce ;  he  translated  roughly  into  substance  a  med 
ley  of  representations  which  he  had  found  in  books  or 
magazines  and  which,  in  his  working  sketches,  he  jum 
bled  together  after  the  manner  of  a  child.  It  is  fortunate 
for  collectors  that  so  wily  a  forger  had  not  a  better  un 
derstanding  of  his  business.  His  product  is  in  a  class 
with  the  'petrified  man'  of  William  Ruddock,  which  was 
alleged  to  have  been  found  in  1876,  in  the  Pine  River 
region  of  Michigan,  whence  most  of  the  Scotford  'finds' 
have  come.  The  'petrified  man'  was  itself  an  echo  of  the 
Cardiff  Giant,  and  may  possibly  in  turn  have  suggested 
these  ventures  in  a  new  field.  One  of  my  friends  thinks 
'forgeries'  too  dignified  a  word  to  apply  to  such  objects; 
he  would  call  them  simply  'fakes.'  " 

In  a  letter,  dated  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  May  10, 
1910,  Rev.  S.  D.  Peet,  editor  of  the  American  Anti 
quarian,  says : 

"The  booklet  I  have  not  seen,  but  I  should  call  the 
relics  frauds.  You  may  rely  on  one  thing,  that  anything 
found  underneath  the  soil  with  an  alphabet  or  letters 
from  any  alphabet  on  it  is  a  fraud.  There  might  be 
pictographs — snakes,  birds,  animals  and  human  forms — 
but  prehistoric  alphabets  are  not  found  in  America." 

Under  date  of  May  4,  1910,  Prof.  James  H.  Breasted, 


576  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

director  of  the  Haskell  Oriental  Museum,  University  of 
Chicago,  wrote : 

"I  have  received  your  inquiry  regarding  the  Michigan 
antiquities,  or  the  so-called  'antiquities/  with  great  in 
terest.  I  did  not  know  that  Mr.  Etzenhouser  is  a  Mor 
mon  or  that  the  Mormons  are  pushing  these  Michigan 
finds  in  their  own  behalf.  Mr.  Etzenhouser  wrote  me  a 
short  time  ago,  asking  my  opinion  of  these  finds  and 
mailing  me  at  the  same  time  a  copy  of  his  brochure  con 
taining  cuts  of  the  slate  and  copper  tablets.  I  enclose 
you  a  copy  of  my  reply  to  Mr.  Etzenhouser.  There  can 
be  absolutely  no  doubt  of  the  modern  origin  of  these 
alleged  antiquities.  Forgeries  pass  over  my  desk  in  this 
museum  every  few  days.  This  Michigan  lot  are  about 
the  worst  I  ever  saw." 

In  his  letter  to  Mr.  Etzenhouser,  which  was  written 
before  he  was  aware  of  the  fact  that  that  gentleman  was 
a  Mormon  or  that  the  Mormons  were  making  use  of 
these  "finds"  to  support  their  claims  Professor  Breasted 
said: 

"I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  inscriptions 
on  these  slate  tablets  and  copper  plates,  etc.,  are  clumsy 
forgeries,  made  by  combining  badly  drawn  Egyptian 
hieroglyphs,  cuneiform  signs  of  Assyria,  and  other  signs 
into  a  preposterous  and  impossible  whole." 

In  closing  this  paper  I  recommend  that  every  anti- 
Mormon  polemic  obtain  the  booklet  put  out  by  Mr. 
Etzenhouser,  "Engravings  of  Prehistoric  Specimens 
from  Michigan,  U.  S.  A.,"  and  also  Professor  Kelsey's 
paper,  "Some  Archaeological  Forgeries  from  Michigan," 
in  the  American  Anthropologist  for  January-March, 
1908.  The  first  can  be  obtained  of  Mr.  Etzenhouser  at 
57  Selden  Avenue,  Detroit,  Michigan,  for  $i ;  the  second, 
from  Mr.  B.  Talbot  B.  Hyde,  treasurer  of  the  American 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  577 

Anthropological   Association,    542   Fifth   Avenue,    New 
York  City,  New  York,  for  $1.25. 

CHARLES  A.  SHOOK. 
PALMER,  Illinois,  June  i,  1910. 


578  CUMORAH   REVISITED 


INDICES 


I.   AUTHORS. 

American  Antiquities   (A.  W.  Bradford),  143,  145,  156,  212, 

235,  479- 

American  Antiquarian,  495. 

American  Race,  The  (D.  G.  Brinton),  74,  80,  82,  124,  143, 
146,  158,  162,  166,  167,  170,  178,  225,  228,  241,  273,  305,  325,  364, 
365,  382,  495. 

Ancient  America  (J.  D.  Baldwin),  127,  154,  177,  224,  225, 
249,  268,  313,  347,  352,  361. 

Ancient  Cities  of  the  New  World  (Desire  Charnay),  125,  177. 

Ancient  Monuments  and  Ruined  Cities   (S.  D.  Peet),  366. 

Annals  Louisiana  Hist.  Coll.,  310. 

Archaeological  Frauds   (Col.  Charles  Whittlesey),  545. 

Atlantis   (Ignatius  Donnelly),  145,  479. 

Aztecs,  The  (Lucien  Briart),  234,  409,  423,  429. 

Bible  Dictionary  (Wm.  Smith),  198. 

Biedma,  Louisiana  Hist.  Coll.,  Vol.  II.,  309. 

Book  of  Mormon  (twenty-second  edition),  49,  50,  140,  243, 
244,  263,  264,  295,  336,  372,  380,  382,  439,  465. 

Book  of  Mormon  Lectures  (H.  A.  Stebbins),  58,  130,  140, 
142,  151,  159,  161,  165,  166,  175,  186,  206,  210,  218,  240,  246,  250, 
261,  328,  373,  390,  401,  404,  405,  438,  466- 

Book  of  Mormon  Verified  (A.  B.  Phillips),  160,  327,  377,  417, 

543- 

Book  Unsealed,  The  (R.  Etzenhouser),  58,  218,  466,  467,  540. 

Cherokees  in  Pre-Columbian  Times,  The  (Cyrus  Thomas), 
116,  265,  266,  289,  312,  313. 

Chronicle,  The  St.  Louis   (February,  1889),  564. 

Compendium  of  Geography  of  Central  and  Southern  America, 
Vol.  II.,  494. 

Conquest  of  Mexico,  Vol  III.    (W.  H,   Prescott),  347,  352> 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  579 

Conquest  of  Peru,  Vol.  I.  (W.  H.  Prescott),  128,  338,  348,  377. 

Descent  of  Man,  The  (Charles  Darwin),  166. 

Discovery  of  America,  Vol.  I.   (John  Fiske),  318,  519. 

Divinity  of  Book  of  Mormon  Proven  by  Archaeology  (Miss 
Louise  Palfrey),  218. 

Doctrines  and  Dogmas  of  Mormonism  (D.  H.  Bays),  529,  530. 

Earth  and  Its  Inhabitants,  The  (E.  Reclus),  222. 

Encyclopedia,  Britannica,  351,  354. 

Encyclopedia    (Johnston's),  275. 

Essays  of  an  Americanist  (D.  G.  Brinton),  61,  66,  72,  129,  171, 
314,  360,  369,  483,  485,  490,  506,  511,  515. 

Evening  and  Morning  Star,  The   (February,  1907),  514. 

Evolution   (Alexander  Winchell),  381. 

Explorations  in  Bible  Lands  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (H. 
V.  Hilprecht),  375. 

Explorations  in  the  West   (F.  V.  Hayden),  381. 

Footprints  of  Vanished  Races  (A.  J.  Conant),  265. 

Gentleman  of  Elvas,  Bradford  Club  Series,  Vol.  I.,  310. 

Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  Hist,  de  la  Flor.,  310. 

History  of  Mormonism   (E.  D.  Howe),  523. 

History  of  the  U.  S.  (George  Bancroft),  Vol.  III.,  469, 
482,  489. 

History  of  the  U.  S.  (Clark  Ridpath),  177. 

Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America  (J.  L.  Stephens),  360. 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  North  American  Archaeology 
(Cyrus  Thomas),  67,  87,  99,  103,  153,  163,  164,  227,  229,  230,  231, 
232,  235,  236,  269,  271,  276,  281,  284,  297,  363,  367,  379,  382,  507. 

Jesuits  in  North  America,  The  (F.  Parkman),  391,  412,  440. 

Joseph  the  Seer  (W.  W.  Blair),  59,  340,  342,  346,  414,  552. 

Man  and  His  Migrations  (R.  G.  Latham),  181. 

Manual  of  Young  (Mormon)  Men's  Mutual  Improvement 
Association,  491. 

Mayan  Primer  (D.  G.  Brinton),  404,  508,  513. 

Mediation  and  Atonement    (John   Taylor),  405. 

Modern  Knowledge  of  American  Antiquities  (H.  A.  Steb- 
bins),  130. 

Mormon  Portraits   (Dr.  W.  Wyl),  549. 

Mound  Builders,  The  (J.  P.  McLean),  178,  235,  265,  267,  379, 
449,  461,  509,  542,  555. 

Mound  Builders,  The  (S.  D.  Peet),  451,  465. 


580  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Mound-building  Age  in  America,  The  (Dr.  C.  A.  Peterson), 
275,  279. 

Myth  of  the  Manuscript  Found  (George  Reynolds),  56. 

Myths  and  Symbols,  or  Aboriginal  Religions  (S.  D.  Peet), 
408,  417,  449,  458. 

Myths  of  the  New  World  (D.  G.  Brinton),  60,  62,  63,  64,  125, 
145,  153,  155,  188,  235,  275,  325,  361,  391,  392,  393,  395,  400,  412, 
416,  439,  440,  515,  545. 

Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America  (Justin  Windsor), 

133.  134- 

Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States,  Vol.  I.,  146,  494;  Vol.  II., 
196,  216,  241,  349,  427,  503,  519;  Vol.  III.,  197,  331,  359,  395,  392, 
398,  399,  403,  4i7,  483,  4951  Vol.  IV.,  127,  128,  162,  170,  221, 
223,  242,  249,  265,  296,  366,  368,  378,  379,  448,  454,  460,  508,  510; 
Vol.  V.,  121,  123,  124,  126,  151,  173,  176,  182,  227,  236,  237,  238, 
329,  332,  342,  346,  347,  353,  354,  357,  457,  478,  479,  480,  553- 

Nature  and  Man  in  America  (N.  S.  Shaler),  74,  275. 

North  Americans  of  Antiquity  (John  T.  Short),  120,  121,  156, 
157,  216,  223,  236,  238,  241,  278,  327,  347,  361,  402,  519,  545. 

North  Americans  of  Yesterday  (F.  S.  Dellenbaugh),  66,  72, 
144,  153,  163,  178,  292,  301,  336,  .347,  353,  360,  362,  378,  382,  387, 
392,  395,  436,  437,  481,  482,  484,  488,  490,  509,  519,  562. 

Objections  to  the  Book  of  Mormon  and  the  Book  of  Doctrine 
and  Covenants  Answered  and  Refuted  (J.  R.  Lambert),  578. 

Opinions  of  Sixty-five  Leading  Ministers  and  Bible  Com 
mentators  on  Isa.  29:  11-24  and  Ezek.  37:  15-20  (C.  J.  Hunt),  58. 

Palacio  Carta  (E.  G.  Squier),  241. 

Peru  (E.  G.  Squier),  509. 

Pratt's  Works,  Orson,  56,  59,   113,  180. 

Preadamites   (Alex.  Winchell),  68,  162,  234. 

Prehistoric  America  (Marquis  de  Nadaillac),  108,  121,  122, 
128,  130,  162,  222,  224,  226,  247,  265,  277,  283,  288,  294,  296,  297, 
300,  314,  362,  366,  378,  379,  382,  385,  446,  457,  509,  519,  52i. 

Prehistoric  Man    (Daniel  Wilson),  269. 

Prehistoric  Races  of  the  United  States  (J.  W.  Foster),  135, 
169,  177,  182,  277,  280,  282,  352,  361,  449,  460,  481,  482,  545- 

Presidency  and  Priesthood  (W.  H.  Kelley),  58,  189,  223,  239, 
261,  327,  498,  503,  518,  532,  548. 

Primitive  Man  in  Ohio  (W.  K.  Moorehead),  287,  290,  305, 
379.  5H. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  581 

Problem  of  the  Ohio  Mounds  (Cyrus  Thomas),  248,  283,  301, 
302,  305. 

Prophetic  Watchman,  551. 

Reports,  Bureau  American  Ethnology,  I.,  187,  209,  392,  395, 
485;  II.,  70,  270,  281,  391,  395;  III.,  536;  IV.,  301,  562;  XII.,  256, 
291,  374,  544,  562;  XVI.,  163,  376,  515;  XVII.,  163,  391;  XIX., 
282,  283,  318. 

Report  of  the  Committee  on  American  Archaeology  (W.  H. 
Kelley,  F.  M.  Sheehy,  Wm.  Woodhead),  48,  51,  54,  58,  223,  262, 
264. 

Researches  (E.  B.  Taylor),  241. 

Review  of  the  Evidence  Relating  to  Auriferous  Gravel  Man 
in  California  (W.  H.  Holmes),  70. 

Ruins  Revisited  by  an  Americanist  (S.  F.  Walker),  147,  477, 
559,  56i. 

Saints'  Herald,  493. 

Schoolcraft's  Archaeology    (Henry  Schoolcraf t) ,   199. 

Science,  556. 

Smithsonian  Report  (1891),  293,  295. 

Some  Considerations  on  the  Mounds    (Colonel  Force),  304. 

Story  of  Mexico  (Susan  Hale),  225. 

Ten  Tribes  of  Israel,  The  (Timothy  Jenkins),  183,  187,  190, 
192,  193,  197,  198,  201,  204,  207,  208,  475. 

Text-book  (A.  H.  Parsons),  138. 

Text  Book  of  Geology  (J.  D.  Dana),  380. 

Times  and  Seasons,  545. 

Travels  in  Mexico  (F.  S.  Ober),  222,  234. 

Truth  Defended,  The  (H.  C.  Smith),  531,  533. 

Two  Lectures  on  the  Book  of  Mormon  (J.  E.  Talmadge), 
402,  466. 

Types  of  Mankind  (J.  C.  Nott  and  Geo.  R.  Gliddon),  170,  490. 

Uncivilized  Races  of  Men  (J.  G.  Wood),  191. 

Voice  of  Warning,  A  (P.  P.  Pratt),  189,  436,  437,  466. 

Vestiges  of  the  Mayas   (Le  Plongeon),  362. 

Walam  Olum  (D.  G.  Brinton),  317. 

Work  in  Mound  Exploration  (Cyrus  Thomas),  247,  285,  290, 

319. 

II.    SUBJECTS. 

Ablutions  and  anointings,  197. 
Adultery,  punishments  of,  202, 


582  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Agriculture,  Indian,  294,  302-305,  324;  Jaredite,  244,  263,  287; 
Nephite,  56,  244,  287. 

Albinos,  144,  146. 

Algonkins,  color  of,  145;  built  mounds,  273,  314;  location  of, 
71,  80;  migrations  of,  235,  272;  myths  of,  333. 

Alphabets,  502,  511,  513,  514,  etc. 

Altars,  88,  106,  107,  444,  456,  457. 

Amazon,  stocks  of  the,  82. 

American  Antiquarian  Society,  organization  of,  133. 

American  Race,  unity  of,  60,  171;  physical  variations  of,  60; 
a  distinct  race,  61,  77;  origin  of,  53,  63,  64,  135,  139,  140; 
antiquity  of,  64,  65,  68,  166,  171 ;  stocks  of,  78-85. 

"Amerind,"  derivation  of  name,  61. 

Analogies,  Egyptian,  340-357,  514;  Jewish,  136,  137,  173,  175, 
180;  Madagascaran,  211;  Mongolian,  212;  Polynesian,  212;  value 
of,  180-183,  341,  358,  387,  437,  481;  to  Christian  faith,  329,  402. 

Arawacks,  82. 

Araucanians,  84. 

Arch,  absence  of,  in  America,  325,  337. 

Archaeology,  relation  of  to  the  question  of  the  credibility  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  56-59. 

Architecture,  American,  95-107,  229,  233,  270,  295,  296,  323, 
325,  337-340,  360,  368,  446-451 J  Egyptian,  351-354 ;  Jewish,  336-340. 

"Area  of  Characterization,"  65,  326. 

Ark  of  the  covenant,  206. 

Athapascas,  78,  433. 

Aymaras,  60,  84,  365. 

Aztecs,  81,  217,  227,  228,  258,  356,  396,  506. 

Bacabs,  the  four,  403. 

Baptism,  22,  198,  389,  420,  422. 

Behring  Strait,  supposed  immigration  across,  74,  177. 

Bison,  76. 

Bochica,  148,  150. 

Book  of  Mormon,  historical  outline  of,  47-56,  139,  140; 
geography  of,  112. 

Brass,  243. 

Bronze,  tools  of,  377,  378,  506. 

Busk  (puskita),  193. 

Caddoes,  81. 

Cakchiquels,  81,  122. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  583 

Calaveras  skull,  69. 

Calendar,  119,  191,  324,  348-351,  360,  526,  561. 

Canaris,  84. 

Cannibalism,  291,  322,  419. 

"Caractors,"  20,  521-539. 

Caribs,  82,  468. 

Cave  animals,  76,  167. 

Chata  Muskokis,  location  of,  80;  works  of,  273,  319;  move 
ments  of,  235,  272. 

Cherokees,  location  of,  80,  116;  works  of,  282,  311;  relation 
ship  of,  116,  272,  315;  number  of,  293;  movements  of,  116,  271; 
myths  of,  333,  434;  name  of,  317. 

Chibchas   (see  Muyscas). 

Chichimecs,  120,  217,  224. 

Chicomoztoc,  231,  232,  328,  335. 

Chimus    (see  Yuncas). 

Chontals,  81,  494. 

Chronology,  47,  70,  120,  123,  128,  129,  139,  152,  220,  235,  237, 
•242,  274-276,  363,  367,  369,  508. 

Chulpas,  157. 

Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints,  founding  of,  24. 

Cities  of  Refuge  (see  peace  towns). 

Circumcision,  196. 

Civilization,  Book  of  Mormon,  Jaredite,  51,  243,  286;  Nephite, 
56,  244,  286. 

Civilization,  American,  indigenous,  64,  77,  139,  248,  357-363; 
grade  of,  287;  comparative  term,  322;  origin  of,  223,  229,  234, 
321,  326;  antiquity  of,  274-286,  363-372. 

Cliff  Dwellers,  91-95,  159-165,  232,  369,  375. 

Cloth   (see  textile  fabrics). 

Colhuas,  119,  224,  255. 

Comparisons,  Hebro-Indian,  467-477. 

Complexion,  53,  60,  140,  142-165,  212,  220. 

Contact  of  ancient  Mayas  and  Nahuas,  235-239. 

Continuity  of  American  races,  159-165,  239-243. 

Copper,  53,  298,  305,  323,  372. 

Coriantumr,  51,  54,  334. 

Coronado,  160,  165. 

Cox  Cox,  330. 

Craniology,  60,   148,  159,   165-170,  221,  268,  315,  344. 


584  CUMORAH  REVISITED 

Creeks,  language  of,  468. 

Cross,  102,  414-417,  421,  459. 

Cuemani,  496. 

Cumorah,  Hill,  19,  46,  55,  119,  137,  142,  565. 

Customs,  burial,  158,  159,  164,  206,  208,  294,  302,  375;  mar 
riage,  202;  miscellaneous,  322-324. 

Dakotas  (or  Sioux),  location  of,  80;  possible  authors  of  the 
Davenport  tablet,  562;  flood  myth  of,  332,  333. 

Deities,  Indian,  322,  359,  390-396;  Peruvian,  127,  396;  Mayan, 
398;  Aztecan,  345,  396,  429;  Egyptian,  344. 

De  Soto,  279,  282,  284,  309. 

Devil,  389,  411-414. 

Division  into  tribes,  183,  358. 

Empires,  extent  of  ancient,  243. 

Eschatology,  359,  438-443- 

Eskimos,  60,  78. 

Eucharist,  426. 

Extermination  of  the  Jaredites,  51,  136,  239,  334;  of  the 
Nephites,  55. 

Feast  of  first  firstfruits,  193. 

Flattening,  head,  221. 

Florida  bone,  68. 

Food,  supposed  unclean,  291. 

Forest  trees,  growth  of,  279,  280,  368. 

Fortifications,  earthen,  86,  87,  296,  305,  316. 

Four  brothers,  Peruvian  myth  of,  128,  154. 

French  writers  on  mound  building,  284,  310. 

Gadiantons,  160. 

Gentile  system,  213,  322,  360. 

Glacial  period,  66-75,  380. 

God,  words  for  in  American  tongues,  392. 

Gods   (see  deities). 

Gold,  108,  in,  243,  244,  372. 

Gorgets,  313. 

Governments,  Indian,  183-186,  323;  of  Book  of  Mormon 
peoples,  50,  51,  252. 

Graves,  stone,  168,  273,  315,  319. 

"Great  Spirit,"  186,  187,  387,  389,  39L  443- 

Green-corn  dance  (see  busk). 

Guadaloupe  man,  68. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  5&S 

Gucumatz,  148,  150,  394,  432. 

Hagoth,  55,  492. 

"Happy  Hunting-ground,"  387,  390. 

Hell,  439,  443  (see  Eschatology) . 

Henotheism,  385. 

History,  two  epochs  in  Peruvian,  127,  365. 

Horse,  51,  53,  76,  214,  380-382. 

Hue  Hue  Tlapallan,  123,  231. 

Hurons   (see  Wyandots). 

Hut-rings,  294. 

Idols,  106,  107,  223,  384,  385,  422,  444,  451-456. 

Incas,  84,  127,  128,  129. 

Iron,  51,  53,  214,  243,  287,  297,  306,  322,  323,  359,  372-380. 

Iroquois,  80,  235,  272,  294,  433. 

Ishmael,  52. 

Itzaob,  367. 

Jaredites,  48-52,  139,  218,  219,  223,  235,  261,  326,  372,  380, 
389,  etc. 

Jehovah,  supposed  worship  of,  186,  243,  475. 

Kiowas,  81,  434. 

Knowledge,  archaeological,  in  1830,  113,  130,  138. 

Kukulkan   (also  Cukulkan),  242,  367,  394. 

Lamanites,  46,  53,  140,  308,  etc. 

Land-bridge,  75. 

Language,   origin  of,  462;   classification  of,  463. 

Languages,  American,  origin  of,  481 ;  diversity  of,  72,  487- 
491;  structure  of,  72,  213,  324,  343,  359,  463,  483;  number  of,  71, 
78,  189,  463,  483-487;  supposed  resemblance  to  Hebrew,  189,  466- 
477;  supposed  resemblance  to  Chinese  and  other  tongues,  343, 
477-481 ;  not  wrecks  of  more  developed  tongues,  481. 

Madisonville,   O.,  cemetery  at,   168. 

Man,  unity  of,  62,  63. 

Manco  Capac,  HI,  128. 

Mandans,  144,  305. 

Manti,  495. 

Manuscripts  (or  codices),  506. 

Maroni  River,  497. 

Mastodon,  70,  76,  281. 

Mayas,  81,  119-122,  216,  224,  239,  425,  431,  441,  etc. 

Menominees,  144. 


585  CUMORAH   REVISITED 

Migrations  of  Indian  tribes,  271,  326;  of  Jaredites,  48-52, 
243;  of  Nephites,  52-55,  244,  264;  of  Mexicans,  71,  122,  123,  217, 
225-235;  of  Mayas,  217,  225-235;  of  Mound  Builders,  268-274. 

Miocene,  flora  of,  77. 

Miztecs,  81,  126,  433. 

Mokis,  146,  162,  233. 

Monotheism  of  Peru  and  Tezcuco,  322,  399. 

Moron,  a  city  in  Argentine  Republic,  499. 

Moroni,  18,  55,  497. 

Mortar  (or  cement),  18,  95,  96,  246,  296,  323,  337. 

Mosaics  at  Mitla,  100. 

Mounds,  altar,  87;  burial,  89,  282,  314,  318;  effigy,  90,  267, 
281,  283,  320,  461;  of  observation,  90;  temple,  88;  implements  in, 
285,  288,  289,  298,  374 ;  supposed  geometrical  exactness  of,  291 ; 
number  of,  85. 

Mound  Builders,  unity  of,  265-268;  migrations  of,  268-274, 
115-119;  antiquity  of,  274-286,  363,  369,  371;  culture  of,  247,  286- 
307,  340;  nationality  of,  115,  169,  256-265,  308,  319. 

Mulek,  54,  498. 

Mummies,  109,  155-160,  324,  354-356. 

Muyscas,  82,  107,  350. 

Mythology,  436. 

Nachan,  120. 

Nahuas,  81,  122-126  (see  Aztecs  and  Toltecs). 

Natchez,  422,  460,  479. 

Natchez  bone,  68. 

Necromancy,  187,  419. 

Neophites,  494. 

Nephites,  46,  53,  139,  218,  223,  235,  250,  262,  326,  372,  380,  382, 
389,  etc. 

New  Orleans  skeleton,  69. 

New  York,  antiquities  of,  313. 

Nomenclature,    American,  491. 

Olmecs,  226,  228. 
Ornamentation,  Indian,  203,  358. 
Orinoco,   stocks  of  the,  82,   144. 
Otomies,  81,  479. 
Pacific  Coast,  stocks  of  the,  79. 
Peace  towns,  199,  211. 
Phallic  worship,  197,  460. 


CUMORAH   REVISITED  587 

Pictographs,  505,  509,  510,  519. 

Pipes,  Mound  Builder,  269,  298,  299,  312. 

Plates,  Mormon,  18-25,  55,  524;  Kinderhook,  138,  545;  Men- 
don,  563. 

Plummet,  Americans  ignorant  of,  214,  360. 

Polytheism,   213,   385,   386,   396-399- 

Popul  Vuh,  237,  506. 

Pottery,  108,  295,  298,  299-307,  323. 

Priests,  53,  191,  417-419- 

Pueblos,  91,  146,   1 60,  258,  266,  369. 

Purification  and  preparatory  ceremonies,  204. 

Quetzalcoatl,  136,  148,  153,  367,  404-411,  419,  429,  450,  458. 

Quiches,  81,  122,  126,  237,  327,  335,  342,  432,  441. 

Quichuas    (Kechuas),  84,   145.  332,  365. 

Quipos,  323,  509. 

Ramah,  Hill,  51,  55. 

Ruins,  of  Cliff  Dwellers,  91-95;  Las  Casas  Grandes,  95,  229; 
Quemada,  95,  229;  Tula,  96;  Teotihuacan,  96,  113,  443;  Cholula, 
99,  113,  148,  443;  Mitla,  99,  113,  132;  Palenque,  100,  113,  120,  132, 
365,  370,  4335  Uxmal,  102,  365;  Chichen  Itza,  103,  113,  365;  Tikal, 
104;  Copan,  50,  106,  113,  121,  132,  223,  366,  443;  Quirigua,  50, 
105,  217,  223,  538;  Sogomuxi,  108;  Gran  Chimu,  109,  364; 
Pachacamac,  no,  443;  Cuzco,  53,  no,  127;  Tiaghuanaco,  112, 
365,  371,  4441  Titicaca,  in;  miscellaneous,  107. 

Sacrifices,  human,  359,  419,  457,  461. 

Sacred  number,  American,  322,  384. 

Sami,  498. 

Sanctum  Sanctorum,   194,  207. 

Scriptures,  quoted  by  Mormons,  178,  179,  522. 

Sculpture  work,  96,  108,  112,  127,  222,  246,  247,  270,  353,  364, 

457- 

Sedentary  habits  of  American  Indians,  302-305. 

Ships,  49,  52,  73,  324,  364. 

Shoshoneans,  81,  227. 

Skeletons,  decay  of,  280. 

Sonorans,  81,  227. 

Spaulding's  Romances,  25-47. 

Stocks,  location  of,  78-85. 

Surgery,  Mound  Builders  ignorant  of,  306;  Peruvian,  376 


588  CUM  OR  AH  REVISITED 

Tablets,  Davenport,  557;  Grave  Creek,  541;  Newark,  138,  214, 

551- 

Tallegwi   (also  Alligewi),  116-119,  135,  258,  282,  316. 

Tapuyas,  60,  83. 

Temples,  Nephite,  53,  56,  295,  336,  444;  Mayan,  100-107,  246, 
338,  370,  443,  447,  448,  45o;  Mexican,  96,  99,  338,  369,  384,  443, 
447,  449;  Mound  Builder,  446,  448;  Muyscan,  108;  Peruvian, 
1 10- 1 1 2,  371,  384,  407. 

Terraces,   river,  277. 

Testimony  of,  citizens  of  Palmyra,  15;  Joseph  Miller,  28,  45; 
Mrs.  Eichbaum,  30 ;  Dr.  Winter,  31 ;  Mrs.  Dunlap,  32 ;  Walter 
Scott,  32;  Alexander  Campbell,  32;  Darwin  Atwater,  33;  Dr. 
Rosa,  34;  Zebulon  Rudolph,  35;  Pomeroy  Tucker,  35;  Abel 
Chase,  36 ;  J.  H.  Gilbert,  36 ;  John  Spaulding,  38 ;  Martha  Spauld- 
ing,  38;  Henry  Lake,  39;  John  N.  Miller,  40;  Aaron  Wright, 
41 ;  Oliver  Smith,  42 ;  Nahum  Howard,  43 ;  Artemus  Cunning 
ham,  43;  of  Three  Witnesses,  23;  of  Eight  Witnesses,  24; 
Redick  McKee,  45;  Abner  Jackson,  46. 

Textile  fabrics,  243,  301,  323. 

Theocracy,  supposed  notions  of,  187. 

Time,  reckoning  of,  190,  324,  358. 

Tlaloc,  418,  430,  441,  458,  459. 

Toltecs,  81,  115,  123-126,  153,  217,  224,  227,  231,  234,  235, 
250-254,  258,  327,  335,  etc. 

Traditions,  of  a  northern  origin,  71 ;  of  a  deluge,  327-336, 
387;  of  creation,  359,  428-436;  of  white  and  bearded  men,  148- 
155;  of  a  sacred  book,  136,  437;  of  mound  building,  281-283. 

Translation  of  plates,  manner  of,  22. 

Trephining,  376. 

Trinity,  the  Mayan,  389,  401. 

Tupis,  82,  422. 

Tutul  Xiu,  368. 

Urim  and  Thummim,  18,  19,  22,  192. 

Uto-Aztecan  stock,  81,  227. 

Vanished  races,  theory  of,  115,  136,  239,  256,  520. 

Viracocha,  148,  150. 

Visions  of  Joseph  Smith,  17,  18. 

Votan,  120,  148,  149,  327,  335- 

Walam  Olum,  the,  115,  317. 

Wheat,  not  found  in  America,  382. 


CUMORAH  REVISITED  589 

Wixeepecocha,  148,  149. 

Women,  separation  of,  199,  211,  358. 

Worship,  animal,  359,  386,  393,  461 ;  hero,  387 ;  sky,  359,  386, 
395,  445,  460;  spirit,  384,  386;  fetich,  385,  386. 

Writing,  "Reformed  Egyptian,"  19,  53,  340,  348,  465,  501,  503, 
508;  Hebrew,  465,  551;  Maya,  62,  323,  346,  506,  512,  515;  Mexi 
can,  62,  323,  346,  511;  Iconomatic,  516,  517;  indigenous,  517; 
"Egyptian,  Chaldaic,  Assyriac  and  Arabic,"  503,  504,  518,  521, 
526,  527,  528,  529,  530,  532,  533,  535- 

Wyandots,  184,  283. 

Xibalba,  supposed  name  of  ancient  empire,  71,  119,  122,  233, 
237,  251,  441. 

Xicalancas,  226,  228. 

Yumas,  60,  80. 

Yuncas,  84,  364. 

Yurucares,  144. 

Zamna  (also  Itzamna),  148,  150,  367,  459,  519,  520. 

Zapotecs,  81,  99,   126,  223,  423. 

Zunis,  146,  233. 


The  True  Origin  of 
Mormon   Polygamy " 


By 

Charles  A.  Shoo/t 


A  PRESENTATION  of  the 
-*  *•  evidences  connecting  Joseph 
Smith  with  the  doctrine 
and  practice  of  polygamy. 


Published  by  the 


«T>     •  r/1  .  W.  A.  C.  P.  ASSOCIATION, 

Jrrice.ju  cents  Mendota,  m. 


(5==::^^(<r^=^(?:^^<5^:::=^<5=:5:^0 


The  Sword 
of    Laban 


organ  of  the  American 
Anti-Mormon  Association. 
Published  monthly  at  Pikeville, 
Ky.,  by  the  editor,  R.  B.  Neal. 


Trice,  $1.00  per  year 


